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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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Chap. Copyright No*_. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



' In thy presence is fulness of joy : at thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore." 



BY 



REV. BURDETT HART, D. D. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

IO EAST 23D STREET, NEW YORK. 



\ 



y 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 




In /Aemory of 

££. W. Ji. 
f. g. H- 



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L The Fathers House .... page 7 

// The Holy City 24 

III. The Foundations . . . . .42 

IV. The Vision of God 63 

V. The Central Sight of Heaven . . -79 

VI. The Homes of Heaven . . . . 96 

VII. The Children of Heaven .... 113 

VIII. Different Degrees of Heavenly Reward . 135 

IX. Surprise at the Heavenly Rewards . . Z55 

X. Recognition of Friends in Heaven . . 1/4 

XL Super angelic Life . . . . . 194 

XII. The Revelation of God by the Redeemed to 

Other Worlds . . . .210 

XIII. The Making of Heaven .... 226 

XIV. A Door Opened in Heaven . . . 241 



ASPECTS OF ftEAUEN. 



THE FA THERS HOUSE. 

TTTTRACTION is put on heaven as the 
I I Father's House in which are many abid- 
■ ■ ing-places for his children. He who 
created the heaven and the things that are 
therein had infinite resources at his disposal, 
and he lavished them with opulent prodigal- 
ity upon the blessed mansions; so that in 
our human speech the City of God is of sur- 
passing glory: flaming from its foundations 
with the splendor of costliest gems; radiant 
with twelve gates of pearl, each one of which 
is of one pearl ; paved in its streets with pure 
gold gleaming like transparent glass; while 



8 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

over all is a brilliant light which is the glory 
of God himself. It is the Father's House, 
fitted for an imperial abode, to whose glow- 
ing walls and magnificent apartments his 
children shall ever look with longing, and 
toward which through all experiences they 
shall hasten with most loving anticipation. 
As in old lands we are taken to castles and 
palaces and chateaux on which the wealth 
and taste of noble and princely families have 
been expended, to secure and furnish a home 
which should be to them the most attractive 
place in all the region where they dwell, so 
here we are pointed to a royal habitation 
which is adorned as a bride for her husband, 
where harmonious music indicates perpetual 
festival, and where everlasting joy is upon 
every head and sorrow and mourning are in 
eternal exile. 

Wolsey, in the pride and power of his ex- 
ceptional position, built a palace with such 



THE FATHERS HOUSE. 9 

lavish expenditure that it rivaled and sur- 
passed any of the royal residences, so that 
the eye of the king looked on it with envy, 
whereupon the haughty cardinal gave it as a 
present to the jealous monarch. But eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have enter- 
ed into the heart of man the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him. 
The King has prepared for his children a city 
to which they can look with gratefulness and 
aspiration. 

This foresight of the Father's House has 
an influence to lift up the mind, to purify the 
affections, to give a sober value and impor- 
tance to a life that is to be graduated into 
such a sphere of light and privilege. 

Mr. Hamerton in his Notes of Rural Life 
in France, speaking of the effect of great 
houses on the mind, quotes from Stuart Mill 
as saying, " Nothing contributes more to 
nourish elevation of sentiments in a people 



io ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

than the large and free character of their 
habitations." He adds, " Mr. Mill thought 
that his visits to Ford Abbey were an im- 
portant circumstance in his education." He 
says : " The middle-age architecture, the ba- 
ronial hall and the spacious and lofty rooms 
of this fine old place gave the sentiment of a 
larger and freer existence, and were to me a 
sort of poetic cultivation, aided also by the 
character of the grounds in which the Abbey 
stood." 

Mr. Hamerton, writing from among the 
great old chateaux of France, goes on to 
say : " There cannot be a doubt that the 
position of Lamartine and Chateaubriand, as 
descendants of old noble families which had 
not yet parted with their great ancestral resi- 
dences during the youth of those writers, was 
a most important circumstance in their edu- 
cation, and gave both of them a certain grand- 
eur in their way of estimating things, which 



THE FATHER'S HOUSE. n 

pervaded their writings and remained to the 
end, most strongly opposed to the small- 
minded bourgeois spirit. From the autobio- 
graphical records which Lamartine and Cha- 
teaubriand have left of themselves it is quite 
evident that the poetry of the ancestral houses 
was strongly felt by them even in their youth, 
and remained as an influence to the end. ,, 

This influence which comes from the 
past, from the memory of the illustrious and 
grand homes in which childhood and youth 
have been spent, and which gives a certain 
breadth and grandeur to all views of life and 
affairs, may find a parallel in the influence 
which comes from the future ; from the imagi- 
nation of a residence prepared for us where 
everything will be on a regal scale of splen- 
dor, and where that regality is of God who is 
revealed as a Father. Those to whom it 
was not given to be born in grand old homes, 
and whose life here is spent in humble and 



12 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

narrow habitations, may yet have their views 
broadened and their hearts expanded by dwell- 
ing in thought on the sure fact of the future, 
that when the earthly house of their taberna- 
cle shall be dissolved they shall have a build- 
ing from God, a house not made with hands, 
eternal, in the heavens. It is made known to 
us now in the ornate descriptions of Scrip- 
ture that we may be lifted up by the anticipa- 
tion of it, that we may not grovel — we who 
are so soon to dwell in the Fathers House, 
where many mansions are. 

This house is depicted to us as created by 
God himself and furnished by him to be his 
own dwelling-place. It is not strange, there- 
fore, that such highly-wrought pictorial rep- 
resentations are made of it, and that, even 
then, it is known to surpass all limits of lan- 
guage. 

What idea can we form of the throne of 
God? What idea have we of the glory of 



THE FATHERS HOUSE, ij 

God which lightens it ? What idea have we 
of a city which is pure gold, and whose 
foundations are made of precious gems ; 
which is immeasurable and high and holy? 

We can, perhaps, more readily estimate 
heaven in those negative aspects in which it 
is presented to us than in those which are 
more positive. We can understand that into 
this holy house there shall be no admittance 
for that foul list of what St. Paul calls " the 
works of the flesh," and that they who prac- 
tise such things shall not inherit the King- 
dom of God. We can understand, or as the 
apostle says "know of a surety," that no one 
of certain characters whom he describes " hath 
any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and 
God." We can understand that the inhabi- 
tants there shall hunger no more, neither 
thirst any more ; neither shall the sun strike 
on them nor any heat; that death shall be no 
more ; neither shall there be mourning, nor 



14 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

crying, nor pain any more; there shall be no 
curse any more, and there shall be night no 
more. We can exclude all these from that 
home of life and light and purity and glory. 
We can banish, in our thought, from that 
world those things that we would like to see 
banished from this world and which we are 
trying to banish from it. We readily shut 
those gates of pearl against pollution, sin and 
crime. We see the spears of angels pointed 
against all evil-doers. Those adamantine 
walls of glory cannot be scaled by sinners. 
The things that annoy us, that hinder our up- 
ward progress, that injure our feelings and 
embitter our life, we can easily exclude from 
the home we hope to enjoy. 

But heaven is not negative : it is decided- 
ly positive. It is a positive and certain place. 
Many have vague and shadowy ideas of it, as 
though it were of dream-land : an unreal, im- 
aginary, diffused affair. But the Father's 



THE FATHERS HOUSE. 15 

House is not anywhere, nor nowhere : it is 
somewhere. " I go to prepare a place for 
you. And if I go and prepare a place for 
you, I come again, and will receive you unto 
myself, that where I am there ye may be 
also.' 1 

It is the place into which Christ has gone. 
" For Christ entered not into a holy place 
made with hands, but into heaven itself, now 
to appear before the face of God for us." 
This place which received him when he as- 
cended, and into which he entered for us as 
a forerunner, is the place into which he will 
admit his followers, and in respect to which 
he prayed, " Father, I desire that, where I 
am, they also may be with me." It is there 
that he is " on the right hand of God, hav- 
ing gone into heaven ; angels and authorities 
and powers being made subject unto him." 
The " principalities and powers in heavenly 
places " are before his throne. We cannot 



16 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

now locate that place. Christ ascended from 
the earth into the blue vault above : we look 
upward, with his disciples, along the path 
on which he went, but our lenses cannot 
locate or define it. In that unknown, invisi- 
ble realm where pure glory shines, there is 
the Father's House. 

Then, it is a Home. The father's house 
is always the home of the children. In 
heaven our Father is. We cannot see him 
yet. Our eyes, made for this world, could 
not look on him. But the promise to them 
who are saved is, they shall see God and be 
with Christ. Though now we see him not, yet 
we believe in him and anticipate the coming 
and glorious vision. There the believing and 
obedient are gathered. They have been as- 
sembling there since the world was young, 
since the first man entered heaven, from all 
churches, from all lands. Those who go now 
are represented as joining the company who 



THE FATHERS HOUSE. 17 

have gone on before, as sitting down with 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It is a home 
scene. There is a common table where they 
partake together. 

It is a place of blessed reunions. Those 
who love will find each other there. Parents 
and children, dearest friends, families, will be 
united again. They will live over again the 
scenes long past. They will enjoy together 
the new delights. Mind remains unchanged 
by death. Memory is not lost. Love is not 
reduced. Real friendship is eternal. We go 
from one home to another; from the earthly 
to the heavenly home. We are the same, 
and our loves and tastes go with us. A 
noble Christian teacher of our own sent mes- 
sages by a friend who was dying to a friend 
in heaven. One of our great theologians 
said that one of his profoundest anticipations 
of heaven was that he should see St. Paul 
there. It is quite common that dying 

2 



iS ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

Christians are consoled in their parting with 
friends here by the thought that they shall 
see again waiting friends there. St. Paul 
comforts Christians with the assurance that 
those who are left alive and those who are 
fallen asleep shall together be caught up in 
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, at the 
time of the final assize. 

It is a place of spiritual life. The con- 
tributions which this world will make to 
heaven will be mainly of capabilities. Souls 
renewed, forgiven, sanctified, will enter upon 
a higher life. The knowledge which they 
will take from this sphere will need revision. 
Its crudities will disappear in the clearer 
light there. There the day will break and 
the shadows will flee away. 

It has always been a joy to saints that 
they should know hereafter. Here they 
theorize and guess and wonder : there they 
will know. Even the Word of God is vari- 



THE FATHERS HOUSE. ig 

ously interpreted. We look at facts, not 
only spiritual facts but secular facts, differ- 
ently. Men cannot agree on matters of every- 
day life — on the conditions of civil society, on 
governmental policies, on systems of health 
and education and business. They cannot 
agree on revealed truth. The difficulty is 
in their own imperfection; in the refraction 
which this world produces; in the disordered 
faculties of their minds. 

But heaven is a world of light and purity 
and power : so that the capabilities which 
are brought into exercise there will find a 
free and fine field. The tantalizing grasp of 
depravity will be broken. The fleshly con- 
ditions will be abandoned. The mind will 
work clearly and energetically and correctly. 
We shall walk in the light of the Lord, and 
in his light we shall see light. There is no 
need there of candle, nor of moon, nor of sun, 
for the Lord God giveth them light. 



20 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

It will be a pleasure to work in that 
world. It is indeed a place of rest. There 
remaineth a sabbath rest for the people of 
God. They who die in the Lord rest from 
their labors. But it is rest for work. They 
will be swift to do, mighty to execute. 
The angels excel in strength, they do God's 
pleasure. They rolled away the stone from 
Christ's sepulchre. The angels are reapers. 
They pour out the bowls of divine wrath 
on the earth. They are ministering spirits. 
They attend Christ and execute His pur- 
poses ; on this world, in other worlds, they 
are supremely active and efficient. 

And the saints will be like the angels. 
They will be rulers of cities. They will be 
students of truth, looking into the deep 
things of God. The play of spiritual forces 
in them will be active and strong and 
fruitful. They will be Christ's vicegerents. 
Owing everything to Christy it will be a 



THE FATHERS HOUSE. 21 

sublime satisfaction to them that they can 
serve him. 

There are two questions which St. Paul 
asks that are full of suggestion : " Know ye 
not that the saints shall judge the world?" 
"Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" 
Whatever meanings may be couched in this 
occult language, it at least associates them 
with their Lord in highest duty. It puts 
them in a place of honor and of power. He 
said, " I desire that they may behold my 
glory, which thou hast given me." In that 
home the redeemed will have personal inter- 
course with Christ and will enjoy his friend- 
ship. The Lamb which is in the midst of 
the throne shall be their Shepherd and shall 
guide them unto fountains of waters of life. 

A saint of our own day was asked if she 
did not enjoy the thought of meeting dear 
friends in the Father's house. She replied 
that "heaven is being with Christ, and to 



22 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

be with Christ is heaven." She had often 
spoken of the delight of meeting her sainted 
father and mother in heaven and her chil- 
dren who had gone before; but the thought 
of the vision of Christ absorbed all other 
thought. This is like St. Paul. He put in 
the foreground " to be with Christ." This 
saint put Christ first and longed to be with 
him. She said, " It will be a day of un- 
speakable joy when we meet him here or 
there* I look with unfeigned amazement 
upon Christians who are reluctant to go. 
The spectacle, too often seen, of shrinking 
from the presence of Christ is one I cannot 
begin to understand. For my part, I am con- 
founded when I see people hurt and dis- 
tressed when invited home. How a loving 
Father must feel when his children shrink 
back, crying, ' I have so much to live for! 5 or, 
in other words, so little to die for." And 
when she herself came near to death she was 



THE FATHERS HOUSE. 23 

eager to go. " Do n't you think you could 
ask the Lord to let me go?" she said to her 
husband. The feeling in her heart had be- 
come so overpowering that no earthly happi- 
ness, no interest, no distraction, could any 
longer satisfy her, or give her content, away 
from Christ; and she longed to be with him, 
where he is. 

Now this was the experience of one who, 
as we say, had everything to live for : an hon- 
ored husband, beloved children, a charming 
home, a most useful life and hosts of friends 
who loved her dearly. From all of these the 
Father's House drew her with its strong at- 
tractions. Her love to all her friends was 
very great, but to be with Christ was very 
far better; her love to him rose to be a domi- 
nant passion and she could not be detained; 
she must see her Saviour's face; she would 
go home. 



24 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



II. 

THE HOLY CITY. 

CONQUERORS and monarchs plant 
within their realms great capitals to il- 
lustrate their achievements, to perpetu- 
ate their glory, to concentrate their trophies 
and the great works which they have called 
into being. So Romulus builded the begin- 
nings of Rome ; started on the banks of the 
sluggish Tiber a metropolis which should rule 
the world — first by military coercion, through 
the discipline and celerity of legions whose 
first lesson in the art of war was that they 
were never to accept of defeat, and then by 
spiritual domination which should awe the 
minds of men, of peoples, and of rulers as well ; 
so making kings, emperors and their sub- 



THE HOLY CITY. 25 

jects slaves of its imperious will. So Alex- 
ander founded Alexandria and began its en- 
richment with spoils of oriental conquests. 
So Peter the Great, on the marshes of the 
crystal Neva, drove the piles for the basis of 
a city which on its frozen zone should rival 
the ancient and splendid cities of the warmer 
latitudes, and amidst gleaming ice should 
renew miracles of art and splendors of civiliza- 
tion. So Berlin was builded on arid plains to 
enclose within its walls the fruits of learning 
and of art, and to be the centre of power 
which should dare to question the legitimacy 
of temporal or spiritual arrogance. 

So a hundred cities along the sweep of 
history have risen in imposing strength and 
beauty, places of protection, of concentrated 
life, of largest results. The great cities have 
been the worlds chief glory. Power has had 
its thrones in them. Genius has found its re- 
wards in them. Princely fortunes have been 



26 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

amassed in them. They have contained the 
glories of art and of architecture and been the 
centres of benevolence and religion. They 
have made the whole world tributary to them ; 
ships on every sea pointing approaching 
prows to their ports and caravans loaded 
with the spoils of all lands journeying with 
ceaseless march to their busy marts. 

When, then, in apocalyptic vision the Spirit 
would represent to us the victorious and 
blessed state of the redeemed church, no bet- 
ter imagery, none more impressive, none that 
would be more thoroughly appreciated by the 
average mind, could be employed than that of 
an imposing and popular and brilliant City. It 
is so described: builded in the eternal heav- 
ens ; descending out of them from God ; 
planted firmly on the restored earth. It is 
a city of wonder. It is the firm and fair abode 
of all who have been redeemed unto Christ. 
Of course it is described with imagery. 



THE HOLY CITY. 27 

The account, as it is given, is figurative. But 
this is the only way, certainly it is the best 
way, in which it could be described to us. The 
imagery all means something. The startling 
figures represent facts. The allegory stands 
for actuality. We see this as it is painted in 
word-pictures, and we may conceive what 
these actually represent. 

The vivid delineation of the Holy City by 
St. John presents to us a walled city. Walls 
were for protection. They encompassed the 
great cities of older times. They were build- 
ed to shut out sudden invasion, to resist the 
ordinary arms of warfare, to give their inhabi- 
tants time to organize for defence and for of- 
fence. Great pains were taken to make them 
strong and durable. A city was strong as its 
walls were strong. Babylon was deemed im- 
pregnable because there was no known engi- 
neering that could reduce its thick and lofty 
walls. When it was taken it was by stratagem, 



28 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

in the security of midnight revel. The city 
of the saints, lowered down from heaven to 
earth, was entirely surrounded by a wall great 
and high. It was massive in thickness and 
in the solidity of its materials, and it rose 
aloft in imposing dimensions. Whoever 
should look upon that city would know that 
there was strength there and security there. 
Onsets from without would avail nothing 
against ramparts like these ; they would be 
broken like waves against a promontory of 
rock. Those who dwelt within them would 
have a perfect sense of safety. 

The experience of the church, the expe- 
rience of individual saints, in the earthly his- 
tory and under the ordinary conditions, has 
been one of insecurity. Christians have been 
persecuted, have been hunted from place to 
place, have often been without any city or 
residence they could call their own. There is 
nothing darker in human history than the as- 



THE HOLY CITY, 29 

saults that have been made upon the church, 
than the terrible sufferings which Christians 
have experienced on account of their religion. 
Their life has been the forfeiture for their 
faith. Even when better days have come, 
when, as now, it is reputable to be a follower 
of Christ, there has been spiritual insecurity . 
doubt has interrupted the fulness and satis- 
faction of faith, and many who were on the 
way have not known that they should reach 
the City of God. 

But in the future the saints are to enjoy 
peace and security as if within impregnable 
walls. The time of doubt and the places of 
danger are all behind. They are the inhabi- 
tants of an impregnable city. No foe can ever 
break through those massive protections. No 
possible onset pan shatter or even weaken 
them. All who dwell in that city are forever 
safe. This is the idea of the " wall great and 
high." Under this figure we are taught of a 



jo ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

coming place and period of security. Into 
the doubts and distresses of the present, the 
persecutions through which the church must 
pass, the perils that rise before every saint and 
the fears that dwell in the souls of disciples 
who are struggling forward, is projected this 
thought of a future of safety. It is a vision 
to cheer all followers of Christ: those in the 
midst of outward dangers, those who all their 
life-time are subject to inward fears. That 
magnificent City of God with its massive 
walls is to be their home, and forever. Keep- 
ing up good heart, and fighting a manly con- 
flict a little longer, they will be safe. No more 
doubts, no more fears, no more foes, forever ! 
It is described as a many-gated city. The 
weak point of a walled city would be its gates, 
and therefore they were usually very few. 
But this city had "twelve gates." Looking 
forth in every direction they gave abundant 
and easy egress and ingress. There were 



THE HOLY CITY. ji 

three on each side. Its inhabitants were not 
to be confined within its walls. The many 
open gates invited them to go forth to survey 
other wonders, to journey to other worlds, to 
minister to any who might be in need, to 
bear abroad the kindling story of their sal- 
vation. Glad as they might be within these 
splendid gates of pearl, theirs was to be no 
selfish joy. They were not to be shut up to 
song and service. Wide as God's universe 
was to be their mission. Wherever souls 
lived, throughout unbounded dominions of 
their Redeemer, they were to be his willing 
witnesses. The many gates, opening toward 
every quarter, invited to outside service ; to 
the broad work of testimony. 

Heaven is a place of benevolent joy and 
service. They are most ready for it, most in 
harmony with its blessed spirit, who live here 
not for themselves but for others ; who are 
fullest of devotion for the unsaved, who live 



32 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

in constant sympathy with the lost and needy 
of every land. Our toiling missionaries who 
have gone out from homes of refinement, 
from these cities of ripest civilization, from 
the advantages and pleasures of our free 
land, and who are caring for the degraded 
and miserable, and who are making Christ 
known to them as a Deliverer, and those too 
who with prayer and sympathy and money 
sustain them so that their work may be pros- 
pered, are most like the inhabitants of the 
holy city. For such is that city builded. In 
the same spirit which animated them on earth, 
out of love for the same Saviour whom they 
served here, will they go out of those gates to- 
ward the four quarters of the universe to give 
testimony to the glory of their Redeemer. The 
twelve gates are for the egress of the inhabi- 
tants. 

They also indicate accessibility. They are 
gates of invitation. Swung back on every 



THE HOLY CITY. jj 

side they seem to invite all men to enter 
them. They are gates of ingress. They 
stand open day and night. For men, for all 
men, east, north, south, west, they fling forth 
their inviting summons. The city is large 
enough for all. It is a great city. It was not 
built for Jews, but for Jews and Gentiles. It 
was not built for a select few, but for the many. 
As the gospel invites all men everywhere 
to repent, so do these many gates emphasize 
the invitation. As Christ was the sacrifice 
for the sins of the whole world, so the many 
gates look out toward the whole world with 
their gracious appeal. Such is the sentiment 
involved in the " twelve gates." They indi- 
cate the openness and the accessibility of the 
city. They encourage the large and liberal 
spirit of Christian devotion, the spirit which 
led Christ to come forth from the Father, 
from the bright heaven, and to come into 
the world. The gates of heaven did not con- 

3 



34 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

fine him, the glories of heaven did not keep 
him from his divinest work. 

Also, they encourage the effort of all to 
reach and to enter the city. The gates 
stand ever open for us, and from whatever 
point we look we may read on their pearly 
leaves our welcome. If, at last, any are not 
inhabitants of that holy city it will not be be- 
cause they might not have been; it will be 
because they shut themselves out. 

Other arguments may have been power- 
less over us ; other calls may have found us 
deaf to their summons : this glorious vision 
of the city descending from heaven and set 
up on the earth may well arrest our atten- 
tion, may attract our affection, may win us 
to the last effort to enter it. 

We go round the world to look, even, at 
its great cities : this greatest city we may pos- 
sess; we may live in it as heirs and heiresses 
of its glories and its wealth and its love. 



THE HOLY CITY. jj 

The holy city is represented as a guarded 
city. All gates of fortified cities were guarded. 
There the enemy would seek to enter. In 
times of special peril the guards were greatly 
increased. The guards, one at each gate, 
are angels, strong, invincible, standing there 
in the might and conscious greatness of an- 
gelhood. No evil person, no wrong thing, 
could pass. A spear of light would flash 
through every disguise and every danger. 
The city was planted to be holy and for the 
holy. 

Reference may here be made to the danger 
from Satan. Through the earth-history his 
power has been great. He invaded paradise 
in disguise and deceit. He robbed the holy 
of that which was most precious and inflicted 
upon the race the dreadful experience of sin. 
This evil power, this cunning and malicious 
spirit, has been at the bottom of all the 
wretchedness and sin of the world, delight- 



j6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

ing in it and leading men captive with malig- 
nant joy. But though he entered paradise 
he cannot enter the holy city. Though he 
spoiled the earth-history, he is himself spoiled 
and foiled and can go no further. The 
adamantine walls forbid his access. The an- 
gels guard the twelve gates against his ap- 
proach. He might deceive men : angels he 
cannot deceive; he might overcome men, but 
in the angel-strength he meets might greater 
than his own. No power, and no craft, even of 
Satan, will avail to enter those guarded gates. 
He and his are excluded eternally. Sleepless 
watch and resistless strength keep those pearl- 
gates. He has tempted the holy once suc- 
cessfully ; he will never tempt the holy again. 
He has wrecked the old world and darkened 
its heavens with palls of sin. He cannot 
hurt the new heavens or the new earth. 

Nor does it have reference to him alone. 
The revelation makes it clear that nothing 



THE HOLY CITY. 37 

improper, unholy, sinful, false, shall be per- 
mitted to enter the holy gates. The holy city 
is for the holy. "Without holiness no man 
shall see the Lord." The wicked are with- 
out : they can never come within. The 
angel-guards will admit none of them. Those 
who were afraid to stand forth in the world 
as God's friends, who w 7 ere afraid to maintain 
the principles of righteousness, those who 
took the place of infidelity and did not be- 
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ, all who were 
given up to abominable vices, all whose 
hearts were full of murder and deceit, all 
worshippers of idols shall come to those gates 
in vain. There will be no entrance for them 
forever. The city was not built for such. 
Its guards are charged not to admit them. 
They have mingled with the good and loyal 
in the world, where wheat and tares have 
grown together. But the time of separation 
came, and the separation is final. 



jS ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

The strong angels bar the approach to 
all these classes. Their spears of light are 
leveled with precision against them all. No 
human power could avail against the angel 
power. The pearl-gates are guarded against 
the possibility of assault. It is utterly vain 
to attempt entrance by force or by strategy. 
The angels are wardens of the city. They 
hold the gates against all comers who have 
not the seal of Christ in their foreheads. 

Let us not mistake the fact of the in- 
evitable separateness of saints and sinners 
when the earth-life of trial and of changeless 
decisions is past. Behold an angel at every 
gate ! 

This is also a saintly city. The names of 
all the tribes of Israel are wrought on the 
gates, one name on each gate. Israel denotes 
the people of God. The denominations of 
Christians are there engraved on the gates of 
pearl. No saintly title is omitted. No church 



THE HOLY CITY. 39 

bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus would 
look in vain for its name wrought on the 
gleaming pearl. In this world they are, in 
name, divided. But under their separate ban- 
ners they recognize one Lord, and they are 
going to meet him and to be with him in one 
place, where he is and where he awaits them. 
Here they look at truth through different 
media and divide on what may seem to them 
important points. The different divisions are 
essential arms of one service, important di- 
visions of one grand army under the banner 
of one supreme Leader. 

Yet the names written on the gates are 
on the outer surface of all the gates : on the 
inner surface shines but one precious Name 
of light and glory, the name of Christ! You 
look in vain on that side for the earthly de- 
nominations! When these divisions of the 
Lords own host march within they are 
known no more by their earthly titles : those 



4^ ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

are left forever on the outside of the walls and 
gates. Heaven knows but one great, dear 
Name; the Name which is above every name; 
the one Name in which all trust, whatever 
may be the names by which they prefer to be 
known here. Within, the people of God will 
be one. They should be one on earth, if not 
in name then truly in spirit, in cordial recog- 
nition of each other, in full fraternity toward 
and love for one another, in acknowledged 
equality and in common labors. Christ's 
churches should work together in holy con- 
cord and charity and in the courteous and 
noble spirit of their Master. 

So will it be to them no shame when 
within the gates they recognize each other, 
no longer indeed by their old titles, but by 
the new name which gleams like a star of 
light upon the forehead of each one of them. 

These aspects of the holy city — walled, 
many-gated, guarded, saintly — present a city 



THE HOLY CITY. 41 

worth attaining. There are splendid cities 
here, to visit which would give us great de- 
light, whose glories draw our hearts with un- 
ceasing longings. There are cities to whose 
freedom it would be a priceless honor to be 
admitted, among whose great men and great 
works it would be a glory to live. There 
are cities the single sight of which would 
reconcile its absent citizen to die. But they 
are of small account in comparison with this. 
And this may be ours! It may be ours fully 
and forever! All the voices from it are voices 
of invitation and welcome. 



42 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



w 



III. 

THE FOUNDATIONS. 

'ITH a friend and brother who has 
spent the last quarter of a century 
in Southern India I was examining 
some of the wonderful sun-pictures by which 
the works of other lands are painted with 
pencils of light for those of us who can never 
hope to visit them, and are reproduced with 
a vividness and accuracy which almost make 
the journey to them vain ! 

We were particularly drawn to the views 
of the massive and elaborate temples of that 
opulent clime, some standing in the midst of 
prolific gardens, some on the crests of lofty 
peaks, some in the centres of populous cities. 
They were builded in imposing, sometimes 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 43 

in grotesque, always in highly-wrought archi- 
tecture, and in styles differing from those to 
which we are accustomed as the mind of the 
farthest Orient differs from that of the Oc- 
cident. But that which most closely drew 
my attention was the refined finish of the 
foundations. Down to the earth, and run- 
ning into it and evidently continuing below 
it, the massive masonry was chiseled into 
beautiful and life-like forms of men and ani- 
mals, in largest abundance and with consum- 
mate grace of design and execution. The 
bases of the temples were crowded with finest 
sculptures. No other parts of the sacred edi- 
fices had upon them more artistic taste and 
workmanship than these parts, which are the 
least observed and which are partly hidden 
in the soil itself. The beautiful bas-reliefs 
which are set in the facade of our finest struc- 
tures were matched by these ornate and taste- 
ful figures in all the foundations, even when 



44 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

they would be partly hidden from sight. The 
fact was one of wonder and of beauty, and 
was full of suggestiveness. To what principle 
we are to trace so unique and graceful con- 
struction can only be discovered by study of 
the Hindu mind. It belongs to the better type 
of culture, to that refined and delicate dis- 
cipline which is the offspring of experience 
chastened by trial. We might look for it in 
the highest mood of Grecian art: it is here 
also under the ardent skies of Hindustan. 
The sensitive and acute soul of the Eastern 
worshiper could not be satisfied with any- 
thing less than the best erection in the tem- 
ple in which the god should dwell. 

As we should suppose, we find the same 
thing in the noblest structures of Athens. 
The Parthenon stands on foundations worthy 
of what is builded on them, and its unseen 
portions were wrought with the same fidelity 
as the statue that crowned it. When Phidias 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 43 

was asked why he spent so much skill on the 
concealed parts he replied, " The gods see 
them, and they must be satisfied." 

Pagan fidelity in the East and in the 
West laying substantially and beautifully the 
unseen foundations and walls of sacred struc- 
tures, building into what we might deem the 
inferior portions of the edifices the fine and 
finished workmanship of purest art, because 
to satisfy himself man must satisfy the gods, 
holds up to us an impressive example and 
teaches us a radical lesson. 

In the apocalyptic visions of the holy 
city we have a description analogous to this : 
11 The wall of the city had twelve foundations 
and in them the names of the twelve apostles 
of the Lamb. . . . And the foundations of the 
wall of the city were garnished with all man- 
ner of precious stones." The twelve foun- 
dation stones which bore up the wall great 
and high and supported the gates, each one 



46 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

of massive pearl, were composed of costly 
jewels. Gems that flash on the coronets of 
kings and are wrought into richest ornaments 
for the adornment of rank and beauty, and 
compose the guarded wealth of states, are 
here the bases of walls. The costliest crys- 
tallizations become foundations of light and 
beauty for the city of God. The jewel-stones 
that are the glory of palaces and the orna- 
ments of thrones are but the ground-work of 
the heavenly metropolis. The first foundation 
flashes in the blood-red light of the jasper; 
the second in the azure glory of the sapphire; 
the third in the whiteness of the chalcedony; 
the fourth in the glittering green of the emer- 
ald; the fifth in the orange color of the sar- 
donyx ; the sixth in the deep red tinge of the 
sardius ; the seventh has the golden glory of 
the chrysolite; the eighth the mingled blue 
and green of the beryl; the ninth the yellow 
light of the topaz; the tenth the mingled 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 47 

green and gold of the chrysoprasus ; the 
eleventh the royal purple of the jacinth ; the 
twelfth the deep purple of the amethyst. 
That City of God rests on a mountain of 
light. Its foundations beam in all colors with 
the glory of sun and stars. Its walls stand on 
massive gems, durable and brilliant. Down 
to the very earth are laid these blocks of 
shining and strong precious stones. And in 
them were cut the names of greatest earthly 
significance, the names of the holy apostles 
of Christ. This city descending out of heaven 
from God suggests to us practical truths 
which lie at the basis of all endeavor. 

In all true structure the element of chief 
significance is good foundation. We cannot 
begin at the top and build downward. We 
cannot even build upward, with any hope of 
solidity and durability, unless we lay well the 
basis on which the superstructure is to rest. 

It is so in personal character. If this 



48 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

rests on policy instead of principle, on worldly 
maxims instead of divine truths, it will be im- 
perfect, and probably poor, character. The 
true man needs to be builded not on the 
crumbling concrete of earthliness, but on 
solid crystallizations of godliness. It is not 
enough, although many think that it is enough, 
to have the reputation of fair-mindedness and 
good standing : there should be the real basis 
for these in the carefully cultured and com- 
pacted character. It is not so much that we 
are in the sight of men which should influ- 
ence us, as that the eye of the allseeing God 
is upon us. We should build so that he will 
be satisfied. The things unseen of men are 
the real elements of character. What w r e are 
is w 7 hat only God sees and knows. Many 
lives are fair to look upon, as we see them. 
For we look only at the surface and at that 
which is most conspicuous. But the seeming 
is quite another thing from the actual. The 



THE FOUNDATIONS, 49 

structure may have a semblance of strength, 
while from bottom to top it is a combination 
of weakness. Character that is begun wrongly 
will be wrong throughout its whole develop- 
ment. It needs foundations that are worthy. 
It must rest on truth and integrity and vir- 
tue, on faith also, and on godliness. Starting 
from these, it will stand and grow in stateli- 
ness and strength. We have men of weak 
character, unreliable in storm and disaster, 
because nothing solid and massive enters 
into their substructure. They stand on roll- 
ing cobbles and tumbling plaster-walls, on 
mere substitutes for truth and goodness. We 
have also men whom nothing moves, whom 
all other men trust, whose presence gives 
confidence, whose counsel insures safety, be- 
cause they are men of substantial character 
resting on righteousness. 

It is so also in affairs. We are in the 
midst of great public trouble and solicitude 

4 



SO ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

because there seems to be a lack of good 
basis for public conduct. The loss of confi- 
dence in public men comes from their own 
unreliability. They have perverted the trusts 
that were confided to them, have subordi- 
nated duty to self-advantage, have sought 
spoils rather than faithful service. We want 
a return to downright honesty, the revival of 
right doing, the simplicity of single-minded- 
ness in the discharge of obligation. 

These must be the foundation-stones of 
affairs. Then men will have confidence in 
their fellow-men ; law and government will 
command respect, and prosperity will return. 
The air is full of reform ; but the word is not 
enough, the clamor for it is meaningless. 
We want that which it means: truth, fidelity, 
conscientiousness, and the sense of responsi- 
bility to God. It is vain to push men for- 
ward into public places under mere cries for 
change and improvement. The men them- 



THE FOUNDATIONS. ji 

selves must have right character and must 
take the posts of rulership in the fear of God. 
We must go down to the very foundations in 
these things, and all the more because there 
has been so much perversion and fraud, by 
which the conscience and the sense of re- 
sponsibility have been weakened. 

The same thing holds true in the Chris- 
tian life. There is a great deal of it, or what 
is supposed to be it, which is builded on un- 
worthy bases. It rises from mere feeling, 
from outward profession, from the observ- 
ance of certain ordinances. The Christian 
life should stand on the best foundation. It 
should be based on inflexible and eternal 
principle. A Christian should be a good 
man. By nothing is the gospel so much pro- 
moted among the nations to which we are 
carrying it as by the true, honest, upright 
living of those who are converted by it. 
These, say their neighbors, were once liars, 



JJ ASPECTS OF HEA YEN. 

now they are truthful ; were once vile, now 
they are pure ; once used false weights and 
measures, now deal honestly. The religion 
is therefore judged to be true. There is no 
argument anywhere for Christianity like the 
life of a consistent Christian. This life is 
not negative only — abstaining from what is 
wrong, not doing that which nobody should 
do : it is decidedly and thoroughly positive, 
demanding from one who professes it that he 
shall illustrate it ; demanding active virtues, 
positive principles, duties that carry good re- 
sults in them. 

The great and strong foundations of the 
Christian life are repentance, actual living sor- 
row for sin to the extent of forsaking it ; faith 
in a personal, mighty Saviour, invisible now 
but wholly apprehended in the utter want, the 
desolation and longing, the perplexity and 
hunger of the soul, and in the fullness of sat- 
isfaction with which he is accepted. And this 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 33 

faith is vital. It takes Christ into the soul to 
be its light. It trusts in him as a Friend. It 
walks forward with him in grateful testimony. 
It serves him with gladness and to the end. 
" If ye continue in my words then are ye my 
disciples indeed." 

These are the underlying principles of 
Christian living, the true foundations of 
Christian character to which the promises 
of Salvation stand. There is strength in 
them and endurance. They will survive 
shock and change, storm and all trial. There 
is meaning for all time in that word of Christ, 
my disciples indeed. Not in name only, not in 
outward profession, not in semblance ; in deed 
and in truth, in devotion, in self-denial, in like- 
ness to him, in living faith in him ; these are 
what Christ calls for ; in such he takes pleas- 
ure. " Nevertheless, the foundation of God 
standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord 
knoweth them that are his, and, Let every 



54 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

one that nameth the name of Christ depart 
from iniquity." 

On such foundations of strength and du- 
rability, symbolized by the massive and com- 
pact gem-stones under the wall of the holy 
city, society and the church and individual 
character would stand securely and lastingly. 

Together with the strength implied in 
the substance, elements of grace and beauty 
should enter into all structural life even from 
its foundation. Dark, flinty rock, ungainly 
masses of granitic substance, would hold up 
lofty and thick walls. Coarse and angular 
ways may consist with real goodness. But 
the revelation presents us with the founda- 
tions laid of most precious stones, billowy 
with light of every tint, reflecting at every 
point the glory of sun and the beams of stars. 
Into our dispositions and purposes, into the 
underlying plans and habitudes of our life, 
should enter those elements which will make 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 53 

our lives graceful and beautiful, which will 
honor the principles we profess, which will 
make personal religion winning and rayful, 
which will attract other minds with which we 
come in contact to the experience of the truest 
life and the noblest labor. 

An able commentator of more than two 
centuries ago writes : " I cannot tell what to 
make of these precious stones with which they 
are said to be garnished, unless it be their 
spiritual gifts and habits of grace ; the various 
manifestations of the Holy Spirit given to the 
apostles to profit the church withal, with which 
they adorned the doctrine of the gospel and 
won upon the pagan world, making them- 
selves admirable in the eyes of men and wo- 
men." The centuries since he wrote have 
produced no more satisfactory explanation. 

There may be something quaint, and even 
fanciful, in the meanings which he gives to 
the stones themselves, but they are not far, as 



j6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

it would seem, from their fair significance 
when he makes the jasper the type of steadi- 
ness; the sapphire of heavenly-mindedness ; 
the chalcedony of zeal ; the emerald of vigor ; 
the sardonyx of various graces ; the sardius 
of courage; the chrysolite of love ; the beryl 
of understanding; the topaz of searching out 
divine mysteries ; the chrysoprasus of gravity ; 
the jacinth of joy ; the amethyst of temper- 
ance. These are divine gifts and graces 
which have always characterized and enno- 
bled true religion and which have given 
Christianity the confidence and control of 
men. They are the precious foundation, 
stones, beaming with divine light, reflecting 
in their pure substance the glory of heaven. 
The more they are possessed and practised 
the more is the world impressed by the supe- 
riority of Christ's religion. We wish to win 
the world to him. We must do it by building 
on beautiful foundations. Love must shine 



THE FOUNDATIONS, 57 

forth in all our labor. Love's labor is not lost. 
It will gain a way to hardest hearts. Men 
need sympathy. They are poor, wretched, 
crushed. They are lonely, abandoned, lost. 
They want Christ. And we are to carry 
Christ to them, in his tender words, in his 
timely promises, in his sweet forgiveness, in 
his divine charity, in his human brotherliness. 
Then our acts will shine with a splendor be- 
yond that of sapphire and emerald and flam- 
ing chrysolite. A great queen, of captivating 
beauty, paid large treasure for a solitary gem 
which she bound with its flaming glory for a 
frontlet on her brow, thinking so to heighten 
her charms. But there is no glory like good 
deeds and no charm like the charm of love. 
We can wear nothing like the ornament of a 
divine spirit and heighten our beauty with 
nothing so well as with compassion and sor- 
row for the lost. Three empires conferred 
crosses of honor upon the daughter of another 



5$ 



ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 



empire for her impartial love, courage, devo- 
tion, in her tender ministries upon the fields 
of slaughter. Heaven will give its undecaying 
crown to us for our ministry of pity and love 
for those whom Christ would save. We shall 
light up the dark places in homes and hearts 
to which we give the promises of the Saviour. 
The church can make itself lovely before the 
world if it will represent the spirit and prac- 
tise the works of its divine Founder. It will 
draw the world to it, as out of darkness living 
things are won to the light. 

There is still another aspect suggested by 
this subject. In the epistles we have Christ 
presented as the " foundation, " Christians as 
the " living stones," together constituting a 
" holy temple " for the glory of God. For 
other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ. To whom coming 
as unto a living stone, chosen of God and 
precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 59 

a spiritual house. Now if any man build upon 
this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, 
wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be 
manifest. Ye are built upon the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone, in whom 
all the building groweth into a holy temple in 
the Lord. In these glowing terms we have 
Christ as a living precious stone, the founda- 
tion of his church ; and Christians, also living 
precious stones, builded on him, and so the 
whole holy temple rising in wondrous glory 
of light and beauty into a spiritual house unto 
the praise of God. Not only is there a foun- 
dation, as if the whole base of the temple 
were turned into one solid sapphire, flashing 
with the blaze of a thousand suns, but on it 
rise all other precious stones, souls of saints, 
with the mingled color and beauty and light 
of all the gems, raying on one another and 
raying on all the world. 



60 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

Such is the description of the church on 
its precious foundation. Surely there is no 
other foundation than Christ. There is no 
other glory like his. There is no one else so 
full of light. There is but one Foundation 
that is tried and sure. 

These brilliant gem-foundations are de- 
signed to attract us upward. They are as- 
pects of the heaven to which we aspire. 
Every footstep takes us nearer an eternal 
home of joy and peace and loving friends. 
We cross the valley, we mount the hill-top, 
and the pinnacles of light and the foundations 
of glory rise clearer on our vision. Through 
the gloom of suffering and the mists of world- 
liness we see the outlines of a great metropolis 
into which go the redeemed of earth, and 
from which pours forth a tide of light and 
melody. As men have drawn near to some 
city of fame, to Jerusalem or to Rome, they 
have not been able to sleep for the thought of 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 61 

its glory and its wonder. All night they have 
strained their sight through the darkness to. 
ward its domes and spires. All night the very 
earth beneath them has throbbed with its old 
renown, and the processions of its warriors 
and its wise men have marched forth from its 
opened gates. All night the stars above it 
have gleamed with new glory and the voices 
of welcome have rung forth from its waiting 
walls. 

As we draw near the city of God, nearer 
than when we first believed, near the glo- 
ries that are greater than our imagina- 
tion can picture, nearer the friends who 
have passed in a little before us, near 
the Christ whom not having seen we love, 
near to his throne and his angels and 
the wonders of his presence, we cannot 
fail to be on watch. The old heavens 
ray down their light upon us. The glory 
of God floods the world and our souls. 



62 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

Dear old faces look through the azure 
as in longing for us. Clear voices, the 
voices that thrilled us in other days, ring 
forth their welcome. Be it ours to send 
upward our glad response and to press for- 
ward in newness of life. 



THE VISION OF GOD. 63 



IV. 

THE VISION OF GOD. 

WHILE our most beloved friends are 
passing away, out of our sight and our 
companionship, it is a matter of grate- 
ful recognition and thanksgiving that we can 
know so much of the state into which they 
are introduced through faith in Jesus Christ. 
We are not shut up merely to what we may 
know by present experience, or to what we 
may learn from them in their anticipation of 
the future. There are doors that open out 
upon blessed realities through which we may 
look and at which we may listen. The clos- 
ing chapters of the Revelation, concluding the 
statement of all that God has thought best to 
give us in the inspired Scriptures, are most 



64 



ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



appropriately full of descriptions of the world 
to which the righteous dead depart. 

No other part of the Bible contains so 
much on this subject. As though the facts 
that are revealed would not be complete un- 
less something more distinct were said, to 
animate the saints in their journey and their 
struggle, to comfort them under the burdens 
of their weakness and sorrow, the concluding 
chapters of the sacred books are made full 
and rich with ample statements of the future 
glory and blessedness of the saved. 

The description is in highly-wrought 
human imagery, and is so brought down 
to our comprehension. The heavenly facts 
cannot be put within the forms of human 
speech, they can only be suggested by it : 
only imperfectly and dimly suggested. We 
could not describe to a barbarian the com- 
plicated and accurate and wonder-working 
machinery of the printing-press or of the 



THE VISION OF GOD. 6j 

great clock of Strasburg. Tropes and sym- 
bols might excite his imagination so that he 
would picture to himself a thing of power and 
wonder and more than barbaric skill, yet, 
when he should look upon the one, reproduc- 
ing to the eye the tireless work of thinkers, 
or upon the other, keeping time to the march 
of suns and constellations, he would behold 
something utterly unlike that which he had 
fancied to himself. So, when our feet cross 
the threshold of the gate through which we 
shall enter into the unspeakable glory, there 
will burst on our vision the sight of realities 
and the charm of services utterly and unut- 
terably beyond anything which the brilliant 
imagery of the Scriptures had suggested to 
our fancy. 

These, the beloved and the victorious, 
who lie down in their beds for their last 
slumber, who sleep on earth and awake in 
heaven, who fall at their tasks as warriors fall 

5 



66 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

with their armor buckled on, who surrender 
in the final conflict to the force which grap- 
ples with every one at last successfully, con- 
soled as they have been by the truths of in- 
spiration, eager as they have been to know by 
experience what they have grasped by faith, 
have found the glory and the joy to be vastly 
superior to their faint anticipation. It would 
be but a dim truth in the song which we sing 
11 The half was never told," for the poetry of 
this world is the commonest prose of heaven. 
It has not entered into the mind of man on 
this side to conceive the things which God 
has prepared for his saints on that side. 

The Scripture dwells on the fact that they 
shall see his face, as a characterization of the 
experience of the upper world. Blessed, said 
our Lord, are the pure in heart: " for they shall 
see God." For now, said that strenuous apostle 
who fought his way victoriously up to the 
shining gate, for now we see in a mirror, 



THE VISION OF GOD. 67 

darkly: but then face to face. We are stimu- 
lated to press on in all Christian endeavor, 
knowing that when he shall appear we shall 
be like him ; "for we shall see him as he is." 
In this expressive phrase is promised a 
special revelation of the godhead, the exact 
nature of which we cannot possibly antici- 
pate — for what human thought can conceive 
a form in which the Infinite One can be 
embodied? Yet it has pleased him thus 
to image to us the glory of that revelation. 
The vision of God — the ability and the 
privilege to look upon his face, to see the 
expression of him of whom we have long 
thought as a Father, who is love, who is more 
to us than all dearest friends, whose infinite 
greatness is paralleled only by his infinite 
goodness, the sight of whom is the supreme 
triumph — is thus held forth to the ambition 
and the affection of all who would be at last 
among the redeemed. 



68 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

Men have gone far and have sacrificed 
much to see the face of one who has been re- 
nowned in human affairs ; of the great leader 
who has inspired others and led them by his 
personal magnetism ; of the gifted writer who 
has gained human mastery by the spell of his 
imagination or the force of his logic. They 
have felt that the intensest aspiration of their 
lives had found its gratification when they 
had seen the features and caught the expres- 
sion of one whose personal power they had 
felt but whose acquaintance they had never 
before made. And it is the supreme moment 
in the immortal life of the saint when he is 
permitted to see the face of Him whom not 
having seen he has loved, and to whom he 
had intrusted interests of boundless signifi- 
cance. 

In this is a decided unlikeness to facts 
within our present human experience, so that 
it is evident that a new order of things will 



THE VISION OF GOD. 69 

arise on the entrance to the immortal life. 
There they shall see his face. Here he is 
unseen. Our Lord declared, No man hath 
seen God at any time. He is called in Scrip- 
ture the invisible God. Moses endured as 
seeing Him who is invisible. An apostle 
speaks of him as One whom no man hath 
seen nor can see. It is not permitted to mor- 
tal eyes to look upon the glory of the divine 
face. They could not endure the sight. 
They would be blinded by such glory. They 
are not made for that supernal vision. 

Stars and suns, the brilliance of gems and 
of flames, may be endured, but not the glory 
of the infinite God. 

We must be changed before it shall be 
permitted to us to look on that majestic 
countenance which is the light of the heav- 
enly world. It will be a new heaven and 
a new earth in which God and his people will 
dwell in concord and in which they shall see 



70 



ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



his face. A new order of things will arise on 
the experiences of redeemed souls. New facts 
of life, of revelation, of vision, will obtain 
among them. Sometimes an aurora wreaths 
its glory around the face of the departed, or 
the pure waxen features are kindled with a 
beauty which was never equaled in life, 
as though at the very entrance to the ever- 
lasting home something of the splendor there 
had flashed out upon one who had merely 
looked within. It will be all new. When 
they shall see His face that will be a new 
revelation. And all other sights and sounds 
and services will be new. We cannot antici- 
pate it because it is altogether beyond any- 
thing of which we have experience. We are 
far from knowing God and far from knowing 
his imperial and infinite surroundings. These 
disciplines and realities through which we are 
passing are preparatory to the revelations on 
high, but they have no other relations to 



THE VISION OF GOD. 71 

them. Here we cannot see God and live ; 
there we shall live evermore in the sight of 
his face. 

This vision of God implies a personal 
nearness to him. To us heaven is the land 
that is very far off; the throne is remote. 
Our sight cannot reach thither. But some- 
where heaven is. That city of God has a 
locality as distinct and defined as any of the 
world's great capitals. We cross the seas, we 
journey on the land, that we may look upon 
the glories of old Rome or see the sanctified 
places of Jerusalem. We draw near to them 
and our eyes flash with their reflected splen- 
dors, and our hearts leap up at the thrill of 
their grandeur and renown. Old histories 
unroll before us ; the colonizations and con- 
quests of the past pour out in vivid panorama 
to our thought ; the great old names leap 
forth as though they stood for living forms ; 
and when at length our feet stand within the 



72 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

enclosure of their walls, and we look on that 
of which we have studied and thought, it is 
the supreme realization of our lives. 

The pilgrim journey of those who are 
saved is to a city not less real. Every step 
they take in the life of faith is toward it. 
Every victory they gain over sin and self and 
Satan is a victory over whatever opposes 
their progress thither. They are going there 
just as truly as men go to Athens or to Jeru- 
salem. It is somewhere: and they are to 
enter it and to see it. They shall see His face 
whose imperial throne is there. It is a city 
that has no night; no need of the sun, neither 
of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of 
God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the 
light thereof. It is a city of magnificence 
and splendor. Its gates are represented as 
of solid pearls; its foundations as of most 
precious stones; its pavements as of pure 
gold. It is full of glory and honor, of praise 



THE VISION OF GOD. ?j 

and purity and love. Those who go there 
shall serve him and shall see his face. They 
will be near him. For he will dwell among 
them, as a Father in the midst of his con- 
fiding household. All that they have antici- 
pated will be met by realities finer than their 
anticipations. 

This vision also carries with it the tinder- 
standing of things now obscure. Here we 
walk in the dark : we see in a mirror, darkly. 
We are in the midst of perplexity. We can 
get no answers to the questions we inevitably 
and vainly ask. There is mystery on all 
our paths. We cannot understand ourselves; 
nor can we understand our relations to mys- 
teries around us ; nor can we know God. 
We are tangled in a net of our own weaving. 
We are snared in gins knit by our adversa- 
ries. We cry, Give us light; but the dark- 
ness settles all the same. 

Now 7 the sight of His face brings the solu- 



74 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

tion of every riddle, the revelation of all mys- 
tery. When we see God and know him we 
shall know as also we are known. If there 
is one thing clearer than any other about 
heaven it is that that world is a world of 
light. There is no darkness at all there ; no 
dimness, even. From flashing foundation to 
glittering pinnacle it is all light. There is 
no night there: nothing to make night of; no 
sin; no folly; no forgetfulness of God. The 
throne is light ; the street is transparent ; all 
the saved walk in the light of it : the Lord 
God giveth them light : the Lamb is the 
light thereof. We may be sure of full and 
blessed understanding there of all the hard 
and obscure things to which we are doomed 
here. The mysterious facts which stand like 
veiled statues around us will start forth in 
native and naked verity. We shall know the 
reasons of things, the wisdom of events, the 
divine perfection of God's ways. To see 



THE VISION OF GOD. ? 5 

his face is to be admitted to knowledge and 
light. 

1 ' No grief can change their day to night ; 
The darkness of that land is light. " 

They who see the face of the King are 
within his favor and protection ; so that this 
vision secures the full enjoyment of the saved. 
Suppose that on some blessed island of the 
ocean there were no tears. Who would not 
wish to go there and to be one of its ever- 
happy inhabitants ? It would be the El Do- 
rado of the world. Ships would sail out of 
every weeping port for it. Men would part 
with their possessions that they might invest 
on that happiest isle. Poets would sing of it. 
Those who should return from it would be 
sought by all, that they might hear the story 
of the glad people. 

Where God's face is seen there are no 
tears, no pain, no sorrow, no curse, no aching 



76 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

hearts, no disappointment, no shadows, no 
solicitude. We cannot read the twenty-first 
and twenty-second chapters of the Book of 
Revelation without knowing that the de- 
scription is of a world of perfect enjoyment. 

And it is to have no end. 

No bliss is perfect that is not eternal. 
Men have solaced themselves that their 
greatest works would last. We like to throw 
the thought of endurance upon that which 
we have carefully wrought. They asked an 
old Master why he worked so carefully and 
long upon his art; and his answer was: "I 
paint for eternity!" The happiness of heaven 
is as eternal as God. Its trees are trees of 
life; its rivers are rivers of life; those who 
go within it go no more out ; its pleasures are 
forevermore. " Thy sun shall no more go 
down," for "the Lord shall be thine everlast- 
ing light." "They shall obtain gladness and 
joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." 



THE VISION OF GOD. 77 

"Soon — and forever — 

Such promise our trust — 
Though ' ashes to ashes 

And dust unto dust/ 
Soon, and forever, 

Our union shall be 
Made perfect, our glorious 

Redeemer, in thee !" 

When Richard Baxter was dying some 
one asked him how he did; and he replied, 
"Almost well." Life and health and eternal 
joy were just before him ; in a few minutes 
he would be forever free and happy. Here 
he was sick and burdened ; there he would be 
well and full of vigor forever. In her last 
moments Mrs. Wesley said to her children 
who were grouped around her bed, " As soon 
as I am released sing a psalm of praise to 
God." She would have the voices here unite 
with her own glad and eternal song. 

All those who in their strength aind 
beauty and loveliness pass away from us, if 



78 



ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



they could speak to us from out the heaven 
to which their ransomed spirits flew, would 
bid us sing rather than sigh, would bid us 
dry every tear and hush every murmur and 
unite with them in thanksgiving that, after 
weariness and suffering and anxiety, they are 
at length at home. 

Let us, as we may be summoned, tender- 
ly lay away the casket in trust of the w r arm, 
sweet earth, " earth to earth " : let us be com- 
forted that the gem which it held has been 
taken by Him who formed it and who had 
engraven his own name upon it, to be kept 
forever, safely, near his throne, spirit to spirit; 
rejoicing with them that they have seen the 
King in his beauty. 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. 79 



V. 

THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. 

THE transaction which made Mount Cal- 
vary the most sacred mountain of the 
world was not a transaction which 
could be localized and limited within the 
event itself. It had relations to what had 
gone before: and it was connected with what 
was to come after, not merely on the theater 
of this world's events, but in transcendent 
and glorious scenes beyond the power of our 
conception now, suggestions of which are 
made in the strange imagery of the Apoca- 
lypse which we can but half interpret. 

From the earliest times, and through the 
ritual of the Mosaic economy, the slain lamb 
had been offered on the altars as a sacrifice 



8 j ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

for sin. Abel, who was a keeper of sheep, 
brought of the firstlings of his flock as an 
offering unto the Lord. The Levitical rule, 
in respect to the Passover, was that every 
man of Israel should take a lamb — a lamb for 
a house, a lamb without blemish — whose blood 
should be freely struck upon the door-posts 
of every house. The sacrifice of peace- 
offering might be a lamb without blemish, 
which was to be offered before the Lord. 
Through all the generations of repenting 
and believing souls who looked forward to 
the sacrifice of Christ, the divine Passover, 
the great Peace-offering, the slain lamb had 
been the type of him whose atoning blood 
was to avail for the putting away of the sins 
of the world. 

When the great prophet who was con- 
temporaneous with Christ saw Jesus coming 
to him in Bethabara he said, " Behold the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. 81 

the world!" On another day when he saw 
Jesus as he walked, he said, " Behold the 
Lamb of God!" 

In after years, as Christ came to Mount 
Calvary, the altar of the world, where he was 
wounded for our transgressions and bruised 
for our iniquities, where his soul was made 
an offering for sin, type and prophecy were 
alike fulfilled in Him who was brought as a 
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before 
her shearers is dumb so he opened not his 
mouth. 

Thus all the past was wrought with 
bloody links to the cross. All the sacrifices 
for transgression pointed to Him who was 
numbered with the transgressors and who 
bare the sin of many. All the white lambs 
of innocence on old altars were prophetic of 
the Lamb on whom the Lord laid the iniquity 
of us all. 

But no less interesting is the relation 



82 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

which this event holds to the heavenly life. 
The past has gone, but the future is before 
us. The past was for others, but the future is 
for all. 

In the descriptions of the heavenly state 
which are given in the last book of the Bible 
we may notice how much the Lamb figures. 
" I heard the voice of many angels . . and the 
number of them was ten thousand times ten 
thousand and thousands of thousands, saying 
with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain to receive power, and riches, and 
wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing." And again the voices of all 
the universe are heard, " Blessing and honor 
and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth 
upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever 
and forever." We have brought before us as 
in celestial review the bright inhabitants of 
that world who have His Fathers name 
written on their foreheads, and we are told, 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. Sj 

" These are they which follow the Lamb 
whithersoever he goeth." In the conflicts of 
the future he is the Leader of the hosts of 
heaven: "These shall make war with the 
Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them ; 
for he is the Lord of lords and King of 
kings." Of the festivities of heaven it is 
written, "Blessed are they which are called 
unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb." The 
throne there is "the throne of God and the 
Lamb." "The Lord God Almighty and the 
Lamb are the temple of it." " The Lamb is 
the light thereof." 

The redeemed who are before the throne 
of God and who serve him w r ith a joy that 
knows no ebb, and on whom no sorrow and 
no disaster shall fall forever, are those whom 
the Lamb, which is in the midst the throne, 
shall feed and shall lead unto living fountains 
of waters. 

By these multiplied and most significant 



84 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

expressions is set forth the great, vital truth 

that THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN is One 

that represents the redeeming work of 
Christ. The language is highly symbolic. 
We are not to suppose that the Redeemer is 
actually represented in heaven as in the form 
of a Lamb, any more than that he appeared 
in that form when John the Baptist said of 
him, " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world!" As the central 
figure and the crowning glory of the great 
bright world of the saved, the Redeemer is so 
manifested to the inhabitants of heaven as to 
set forth the fact of his redemptive work on 
earth. That which is the most significant 
truth in this world's history is in some way 
made prominent and preeminent in that world. 
That to which men are pointed in this life, as 
most important and essential, is that to which 
the attention of all heaven is turned. 

This Aspect of Heaven vividly suggests 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. 85 

the influence of the sacrifice of Christ as the 
eternal revelation of God. We do not know 
in what form the Redeemer was expressed to 
the sight of the inhabitants of heaven before 
his work was wrought on this world. But 
after that he was expressed, and forever will 
be, in such way as to declare his great sacri- 
ficial work for the salvation of mankind. 
Those who look to the. throne will forever 
see that fact represented there. Bright as 
God's glory is, great as his being is, wonder- 
ful and brilliant as may be the manifestation 
of himself, copious as may be the resources 
of his revelation of himself, there yet stands 
forth the impressive fact, that from the as- 
cension of our Lord, after his work of humili- 
ation and shame and death was over, he was 
thereafter, in the midst of his reoccupied 
throne, represented as the Redeemer of this 
lost world. 

He might be represented in his eternal 



86 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

revelation by some mode that would exalt 
him as Creator, as eternally self-existent, as 
infinite in his being and perfections; by 
some presentation that would exalt his great- 
ness : but in truth he is represented by that 
which sets forth his humiliation and by that 
which stands for the extreme of lowliness 
and condescension and self-sacrifice. Is it 
then, that this, which in our human terms 
and in our human ideas is abject and self- 
emptying and derogatory, is really the most 
God-like, the most honorable and glorious, 
the chief representation of what God is, so 
that when it is achieved once on this low 
earth it must, therefore and thereafter, be ex- 
pressed in the very revelation which God 
forever makes of himself to those who are 
permitted to know him? Is it so that the 
sacrifice of Calvary is the greatest thing that 
has yet proceeded from heaven, and that the 
expiation of the world's guilt, made in the 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. 87 

anguish and death of the Cross, is the most 
complete and enduring manifestation of the 
Godhead, so that it must be permanently set 
forth and commemorated in the appearance 
of the Son of God on the throne of heaven? 
Then how will the judgments of this world 
be reversed ! Then how different will God 
be from what men have represented him to 
be ! He could not withhold himself from 
what he did for us here. The whole story of 
redemption is not extra and strange, but it is 
just the story of what God is, and of what 
he wants to be considered to be. Christ's 
death is a necessity of his being. Christ's 
death is simply God doing what God, if he 
be God, must do. He could not keep from 
saving men, from making a propitiation of 
such a nature and extent that they might be 
saved. The cross is a monument of what 
God is. The work of Christ in this world in 
our behalf is the work of God working like 



88 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

himself. He would have been untrue to him- 
self if the facts of the Christ had not been 
facts on this earth. 

This representation is symbolic and pic- 
torial, but it stands as symbol and picture of 
a mighty truth, and that truth is that God 
proposes to be revealed to the inhabitants of 
heaven as the Saviour of sinners. By what- 
ever other mode he might be revealed he 
chooses this mode. And it is fair therefore to 
say that the self-sacrifice of God in Christ, 
that the giving of himself to the agony and 
death of the cross in order that sinners might 
be redeemed, is the most genuine revelation 
of God. 

He made men free, free agents, but be- 
cause they abused their freedom in sin he 
did not, he could not, therefore leave them to 
the fatal consequences of their perverse choice, 
but he gave himself by an infinite offering to 
save them. And he wishes it to be under- 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. 89 

stood that this is the true revealment of what 
he is. So we are taught in the highly sym- 
bolic representations of the Apocalypse that 
in the midst of the throne he appears as the 
Redeemer who suffered for the sins of a guilty 
world. 

This aspect of heaven also sets forth the 
position of the redeemed in the heavenly life. 
They will come there not as original inhabi- 
tants of that world, but as immigrants to it 
from another world. Its scenery may all be 
different from that to which they have been 
accustomed. Its employments may all be 
wondrously new to them. The suggestions 
of its society and of its facts may strangely 
impress them. But one thing will be over- 
poweringly operative on all their susceptibili- 
ties : their relation to the central figure of that 
world ; to the one Being for whom all heaven 
has homage and love. 

There are all along in the Scriptures inti- 



go 



ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



mations of something supremely blessed in 
the coming experience of saints : "Eye hath 
not seen, nor ear heard," what they are to re- 
ceive ; there are things that God has prepar- 
ed, laid up, for them. Know ye not that 
ye shall judge angels ? Ye shall sit on thrones: 
the glory that thou gavest me I have given 
them : the Lamb shall lead them, and such 
like. 

But here we have a still further fact 
brought out, and one which is more signifi- 
cant. He in whom we have trusted and by 
whom we are saved makes the fact of his sal- 
vation of us prominent and preeminent in 
heaven. We had thought of it as a thing to 
be gratefully remembered and joyfully com- 
memorated. We had thought that it would 
be a blessed thing to see his face. We had 
thought that faith would be lost in sight. But 
what if we find that faith is sight; that the 
faith by which we had penitently taken hold 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. gi 

of Christ and had walked with him in the 
changes of a mortal life is matured and per- 
fected until it becomes sight? What if we 
find that he who was our Saviour in this 
world, who endured shame and humiliation 
and suffering and death for us, chooses to 
have that fact made expressive of what he is, 
so that those who look at the throne shall see 
in the midst of it that which emphasizes the 
redemptive work of Christ? 

We think that we have known something 
of Christ here as we have clung to him in 
our sorrow for sin, in our bewilderment 
through temptation, in our weakness through 
the stress of conflict, in our anguish under 
crushing trial, in our victory over the enemy. 
We think that we have prized somewhat the 
great work that he has done for us as his 
peace has come into our troubled souls, as 
his forgiveness has swept the dark past away, 
as his friendship has made all occupation 



92 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

sweet, as his foregoing steps have brighten- 
ed the future for us, as his cross has pledged 
for us all that we need to have God give us. 
We think that we appreciate to some de- 
gree, though it be small, the work that God 
has done for us in the gift of his Son, in the 
offering of the Saviour as a Lamb slain, in the 
sacrifice by which atonement was made for 
our sins, in the self-suffering by which God 
was enabled to come to us with his full recon- 
ciliation. 

But a new experience dawns. Salvation 
is not a thing merely to be remembered and 
commemorated and to praise God for and to 
look back upon. All that we have known of 
Christ is but the conception of childhood. 
All that we have prized of his work is the 
imperfection of immaturity. All that we have 
apprehended of our salvation has been like 
sight in twilight. In heaven God is, first of 
all, Saviour of sinners. In the midst of the 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. gj 

throne that is made apparent. The divinest 
fact of the Godhead is that he can sacrifice 
himself. 

The position of the redeemed is of those 
who have had the fullness of God poured 
upon them, for whom God has made manifest 
more of himself than for any others, of those 
who are brought nearest to God. The great- 
est meaning that heaven gives is that God 
has saved shiners. The throne expresses the 
meaning of the empire. The throne of heav- 
en, in the very midst of it, expresses the di- 
vine Saviour slain for sinners. 

One of the greatest and best of the men 
of our times has written : " Set your heart 
like a flint against every suggestion that 
cheapens the blood of the dear, great Lamb, 
and you will as surely get the meaning of 
Christ crucified as that he left his life in the 
world." As then we behold this heavenly 
vision we get a new meaning of Christ cru- 



94 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

cified, and so we shall come to a new love for 
him and shall hear anew the call to a life 
henceforward of self-sacrifice for him. 

If we wish to be like him we must sacri- 
fice ourselves for others : for our brethren, to 
make their lives better and happier, to com- 
fort them in trial and poverty and defeat and 
loneliness, to strengthen them in tasks and 
conflicts ; for our neighbors, to make every 
neighborhood and street better because Chris- 
tians are living in it who are living like Christ, 
who are bearing burdens for others and mak- 
ing self-denials for those who are needy and 
lost. 

Self-living is not Christ-living. Self-liv- 
ing is not the legend of heavenly living. It 
is not of the spirit of the " Lamb slain " that 
there should be the domination of the world- 
ly spirit. Not now do we look into heaven 
and see the symbol that St. John saw in the 
midst of the throne: but in the most express- 



THE CENTRAL SIGHT OF HEAVEN. pj 

ive symbols of this world we see the great 
fact of the Lamb slain: significant of the 
greatest fact of this world and of heaven. 
May the divine Spirit bring all who read into 
the contemplation of it, not only, but into the 
partaking of it also, that the crucified Christ 
may be formed in us, so that we, in our poor 
way and to our limited extent, and within our 
circle of activity, may live out Christ for the 
solace of his people, for the saving of his ene- 
mies, for the satisfying of himself ! 



p6 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 



VI. 

THE HOMES OF HEA VEN. 

AS our Lord with his chosen disciples 
stepped forth from the house in which 
they had observed the Last Supper, 
and the gloom of the night met them, he 
pointed to the brilliant heavens, glowing, as 
they do in the Eastern skies, with the light 
of stars and marching constellations, and 
said, Beyond these visible glories, in my 
Father's House, that great over-world where 
he dwells and where my home was from of 
old — and to which I am soon to ascend and 
to which you, whom I dearly love, will by 
and by follow me — in that regal realm are 
many mansions: many dwelling-places, many 
homes. 



THE HOMES OF HEAVEN. 97 

In old English the word mansion did not 
mean a large and costly abode : it meant 
rather a dwelling-house, where the family- 
lodged and rested when the out-door day's 
work was done. In the New Testament of 
Wicliffe, translated five hundred years ago, it 
reads : " In the hous of my fadir ben many 
dwellynsis." In the New Testament of 
Tyndale, which was the translation used by 
Shakespeare and Lord Bacon, the word was 
rendered mansions: and that translation is 
substantially the one we now have. It means 
the abiding-place, all that is summed up in 
our sweet word Home. It tells of household 
character, of distinct and durable dwellings. 
We appreciate the misery that is designated 
by the word homeless : the homeless wan- 
derer. We can feel the satisfaction that is 
expressed in the word homeward-bound; the 
substantialness implied in home-bred and 
home-made. 

7 



g8 aspects of heaven. 

Now Christ assures us, " In the City of 
God are many homes ; homes for you and 
such as you. To that city, whose glories are 
known to me, whose homes and thrones are 
of my creation, I shall soon ascend. I will 
not leave you in loneliness and orphanage. 
For I am going to prepare a place for you ; to 
make ready a home — as homes are made ready 
for coming guests, for a bridal pair, for the 
returning family. The place is already there : 
I go to arrange it for you." We are home- 
ward-bound. We are going above the stars, 
which are symbols of the light and glory be- 
yond, into that world of brightness and glory 
where the Father dwells and where the wait- 
ing homes stand in their varied beauty; many 
in number and in kind, differing in architec- 
ture and size and splendor, but all lighted by 
the glory of God, all attractive to the eye, all 
fitted to the taste and quality of their coming 
occupants ; as in some earthly city, which has 



THE HOMES OF HE A YEN. 09 

been laid out and builded under the super- 
vision and taste of a competent architect, 
may be seen habitations adapted to the wants 
and capacities, the means and enjoyments, of 
a thousand families — some of humble appear- 
ance, some of imposing dimensions, some 
plain in their structure, others elaborate and 
expensive — but all attractive and convenient 
and home-like, and exactly fitted for their 
various and rejoicing inhabitants. 

These homes are in the Father s House ; 
in the heaven where he dwells and reigns ; 
where his imperial throne is and where his 
glory is revealed. "It is my Father," Christ 
tells us. " You have learned to love me, and 
you will love Him. My Father is your Father, 
and the place to which I go and to which you 
will come is His abode." In a royal city we 
have seen the palace of its king, as in London 
or Berlin, and all around it, on its parks and 
avenues and its minor streets, the residences 



ioo ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

of its loyal people, some of stately size and 
beauty, like the mansions of Belgrade, or of 
the Unter den Linden, and others adapted to 
the means and tastes of their possessors, but 
in them all loving and loyal citizens, proud of 
the palace and of the monarch whose capital 
is their dwelling-place. 

The homes of heaven are happy homes, 
because they are in the Capital of the King, 
because they are where their dwellers can 
see the King in his beauty. Here God does 
not fully reveal himself. We are like citi- 
zens who dwell in some remote country or 
province of a kingdom, who have heard of 
the palace and the king and the great city 
but have not yet seen them. To be per- 
mitted to come and dwell there, where we 
can behold the glory and the glorious One, 
will be the joy and crown of life. It is " my 
Father." It will be, then, the home of Christ. 
He to whom his people owe their salvation, 






THE HOMES OF HEAVEN. 101 

who by his wounds, and suffering, and death 
did open the kingdom of heaven to all be- 
lievers, will be there, will dwell among them, 
will guide them unto fountains of waters of 
life, will be their Shepherd and their Friend. 
To be near him, to be with him, is the dear- 
est aspiration of his followers. They know 
something of the blessedness of walking in 
his ways, of studying his words, of obeying 
his commands, but they naturally long to 
know more of him and to see his face. 

There are many mansions. Heaven is a 
large place. It has a great population. In 
it are the old inhabitants who have never 
known any other home; who began their life 
and have continued it there. In it are al- 
ready gathered many new inhabitants ; many 
souls redeemed from sin and sanctified by 
the Spirit. And the colonization is to go on: 
the generations of all time will augment it: 
the people of every land will send their emi- 



102 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

grants to it : the world's growing population 
will more and more set their faces toward it : 
and by and by, in the golden ages that are 
predicted, all living men may become candi- 
dates for its immortality. There will be 
room for all. No pent-up city, no contracted 
country, invites the saints. He who has gone 
there to prepare a place is the Lord of the 
universe, and its boundless spaces and crea- 
tions are all subject to his will. He knows 
what his work on earth is finally to result in. 
It cannot be measured by what we have seen 
as yet. There are men of such contracted 
views that they judge God by w r hat is already 
evolved of his providence in the world, and 
because the history, as they deem it, is a fail- 
ure so far, they consider themselves called to 
be apologists for God, and they try to justify 
his ways by advancing hypotheses and spec- 
ulations of their own devising. The Lord 
God Almighty is not to be judged by them ; 



THE HOMES OF HEAVEN. ioj 

his Kingdom is not be constructed after 
human rules : his providence is longer than 
men's measuring lines : he does not need 
justification at their tribunal. It is a whis- 
per that we have heard of him; but the 
thunder of his power who can understand? 
His way is in the sea, and his path in the 
deep waters; too deep for their leaden plum- 
mets to sound; too broad for their brazen 
quadrants to measure. Not yet is his vast 
purpose unfolded. On, in the millenniums 
that are to be, God will vindicate himself. 
It is his own question, " Who is this that 
darkeneth counsel by words without knowl- 
edge ?" Christ, as his word declares, shall be 
satisfied, and that is enough for us. The 
many mansions will be filled. It is an "eter- 
nal city " in which they are builded. 

One has said, " On us there shimmers 
from above light from many mansions. It is 
a city of God that beams upon us, whose 



104 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

golden streets stretch forth into . remotest 
infinitude. We see not its furthest battle- 
ments : its nearest ones do meet our gaze. 
And when we consider that light from them 
is thousands of years in reaching us, and 
that, starting from a remoter point, it is mil- 
lions of years on its way, we may well call 
the city of the living God an eternal city." 

The homes of heaven are places prepared 
for their residents. What that work of prep- 
aration is we may not altogether understand. 
The place was already there. Heaven was of 
old, but the entrance of the redeemed into 
it was of a special design. They are to be 
welcomed of the King : " Come, ye blessed 
of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you from the foundation of the world." 
And we are reminded of things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him. It is 
as though the upbuilding of the city of homes 
were going forward under the eye and direc- 



THE HOMES OF HE A VEN. ioj 

tion of him who builded all the universe. At 
first only God was there ; afterward the holy 
angels came into possession ; then came the 
redemption of man and the reception into the 
heavenly dwellings of those who were saved. 
As the redemption went on, and the number 
increased of those who were admitted to heav- 
en, the homes were multiplied that it might 
be fulfilled that is written, " For thus shall 
be richly supplied unto you the entrance 
into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ." Christians are com- 
forted by the assurance that, " if the earthly 
house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have 
a building from God, a home not made with 
hands, eternal, in the heavens." 

As those who love Christ go to meet him 
and to dwell with him, the prepared places 
are ready for them. They do not go to be 
lost in the crowd, to be lonely over there, to 
feel that they are strangers in a strange place. 



io6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

We sometimes shrink, as we say, from going 
alone. We cannot quite loosen our clasp on 
hands that we have held, as we think that our 
friends are to be separated from us. But 
there will be no loneliness in that place 
where Christ receives his own. Among the 
mansions he has made ready a place for 
every one. He is the Architect who has di- 
rected the construction and style and furni- 
ture of every mansion. We know what he 
has done, as it were before our eyes, in prep- 
aration of the place. His whole work in this 
world during the thirty-three years of his hu- 
manity was a preparatory work for his peo- 
ple. His life of instruction and miracle en- 
tered into it. His sufferings and death, by 
which he made full atonement for sin, entered 
into it. His resurrection from the dead and 
his ascension into glory were a part of it. 
But this was not all. He began on earth 
the work which he is carrying on to comple- 



THE HOMES OF HE A VEN. 107 

tion in heaven. " I go to prepare a place," 
he said. The preparation is progressing 
above. As one may see a city, for instance 
on our frontier land, rising like magic on the 
banks of a mighty river, street after street ex- 
tending over the bluffs and out upon the prai- 
rie, the sound of the workman's tools ringing 
in the air from early morning till evening, 
great warehouses, stately and humble dwell- 
ings rapidly multiplying and receiving the 
incoming immigrants, so that every company 
and every family is sure to find a place pre- 
pared for them, so the city of God has en- 
largement and fitness, through the ongoing 
work of the Lord, for the multitudes who 
come to its hospitable gates from old Chris- 
tian lands, from churches newly planted on 
heathen continents and islands of the sea, 
the ever-growing nations of the redeemed, who 
are absorbed and made to feel at home among 
the inhabitants of the blessed country. 






108 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

Our Lord is equal to his tasks. Not so 
fast can heaven be filled that he is not ready 
to receive all who come. His voice is of wel- 
come to every victorious believer. The places 
are prepared always in advance. By one of- 
fering he has opened the new and living way 
to the house of God. He is able to save to 
the uttermost them that draw near unto God 
through him, seeing he ever liveth to make 
intercession for them. Having, then, a great 
High Priest who hath passed through the 
heavens we may have assured confidence in 
the completeness of his work for us. We are 
indeed separated here ; our families are bro- 
ken up and beloved friends are parted. But 
as Joseph went before, and was ready in the 
mansions of Egypt's capital to greet his father 
and his brethren and his beloved Benjamin 
when they arrived there, so will those who have 
gone on into God's dwelling-place be ready to 
give glad welcome to those who follow them. 



THE HOMES OF HE A VEN. iog 

If this aspect of heaven as the city of 
homes be cherished, we may say that from 
those dwellings old friends will look forth for 
those who are expected, doors will be opened 
by those who have welcomed the new-comers 
a thousand times before, the voices will have 
the tone and ring of the old home-life, and 
the hands that will clasp their hands will be 
those that have held them and helped them 
in the love and labor of the' earth-life. Your 
little child, whose solitary going seemed so 
sad to you, will be taken into arms that will 
hold it with a caress as loving as your own. 
Your aged mother, for whom you ministered 
with a love as constant as the hours, and who 
clung to the old home to the last, will find 
a dearer home open to her footsteps and old 
friends offering to her the cheerful hospitali- 
ties of the heavenly world. Your beloved 
friend, with whom you walked on the long 
way of earthly service, and whose changeless 



no ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

love was the one true thing in which you 
could always confide, will wait through the 
lingering years for your coming and will in- 
troduce you to the dwelling which the Lord 
has prepared for your re-united life. 

We need not hesitate to go. All that w r e 
need to dread is what will occur on this side. 
The weary sickness, the pain of the mortal 
body, the consuming care of friends, these 
are the things from which we may shrink. 
Blessed are they who in the midst of life sud- 
denly lie down in the embrace of death. On 
that side everything is to be desired. Do 
travelers hesitate to embark for the home- 
ward voyage? However pleasant may have 
been the stay in foreign lands, however they 
may have enjoyed the society of the great and 
the good abroad, that day is a red-letter day 
when the ship casts off its cables and turns 
its prow toward the waiting home-land. Do 
school-children dread the day that shall end 



THE HOMES OF HE A VEN. in 

the term and set their faces toward home and 
parents and brothers and sisters ? Although 
their fellows may be loved the home-love 
draws on all their nature, and with shout and 
song they throw down their books and start 
on their happy journey. 

Heaven is the home-land. More and 
more it is filling up with our beloved. With 
kindling eyes and hurrying footsteps and 
brief farewells, and the words, " Meet us 
there," they are passing on, upward, within 
the gates. The blessed mansions are all 
ready for them. 

By the truthfulness of Christ's own word, 
by the sincerity of his deep affection, by the 
wonderfulness of his vicarious sacrifice, we 
may be sure that for us, as for them, that for 
us with them, if we and they are Christ's, 
homes are all prepared. 

Let us joyfully anticipate the time when 
we may go. Let us hold lightly by anything 



ii2 ASPECTS OF HE A VEX. 

that would tend to hinder us. Let us not 
dread the messenger who is appointed of 
God to usher us into immortality. And 
when, as to many of us it has occurred, the 
time shall come when those we love shall be 
called to the heavenly mansions, let us not by 
our sadness make it hard for them to go, but 
rather feel that soon, soon, we shall meet 
them again ; that our mournful " good-night " 
will soon be followed by a cheerful "good 
morning." 

" Yet, kneeling low in darkened homes, 
And weeping for the treasure spent, 
We bless thee, Lord, for that sweet word 
Our dear ones murmured as they went. " 



THE CHILDREN OF HEA VEN. uj 



VII. 

THE CHILDREN OF HEA VEN 

IT fell to the prophet Zechariah to foretell 
affairs and events in the restored Jerusa- 
lem, which to the pious Jew was the type 
of the city of God. Its desolations had been 
great and severe. The war-horses of its ene- 
mies had pranced in its most sacred places ; 
their hoofs had thundered on the spots where 
holy altars had stood, and their neighings had 
rung where the music of voices and instru- 
ments had celebrated the praises of Almighty 
God. The strong walls which had stood as 
ramparts of defense around the sacred city 
had been broken, and insolent barbarians had 
poured through their ragged breaches for ra- 
pine and plunder. The homes of the people 

8 



U4 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

had been invaded and sacked. Carnage and 
lust had done their worst. The surviving 
citizens had been carried away as captives by 
the armies of the conquerers, and in strange 
lands they had found it hard to sing the 
songs of Zion, and their untuned harps 
hung desolately upon the willows. Few 
and melancholy were the inhabitants of the 
old city that had seen proud days of joy and 
festivity. Aged men and women were no 
more seen on its streets nor ascending the 
mount for holy worship. There were no 
children within its broken and silent walls ; 
their swift feet were not seen in play; their 
glad laughter — sweetest of music- — was not 
heard, thrilling wherever it rang; the flash 
of roguish eyes, the magic of rapturous 
voices, the waving of graceful hands had 
passed away like the light of morning, like 
the perfume and beauty of flowers. So the 
city sat desolate. 



THE CHILD REX OF HEAVEN. i/j 

Happy was the seer who could predict its 
restoration. He saw its walls rising again ; 
its temple lifting its roof of gold and reflect- 
ing back the glory of the gilded heavens ; its 
homes once more the habitations of its own 
people; traffic in its marts again ; worship at 
its rebuilded altars ; the coming and going of 
its population and of strangers; the prosper- 
ous fortunes of its citizens ; its safety in the 
midst of surrounding wars ; its victories un- 
der able chieftainship ; a future great and glo- 
rious and in happy contrast with the gloom 
and ruin of its overthrow and desertion. He 
says, " There shall yet old men and old wo- 
men dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and 
every man with his staff in his hand for very 
age. And the streets of the city shall be 
full of boys and girls playing in the streets 
thereof.'' These were the finest emblems of 
its restored prosperity and glory. Grander 
than arches of triumph were the hoary heads 



n6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

of its old men. Richer than the clink of gold 
and silver on its counters was the ringing: 
laughter of boys and girls on its highways. 
Every street, he says, of the New Jerusa- 
lem shall be full of children ; they shall 
throng at every doorway ; pour in the full 
tide of their exuberant joy up and down the 
thoroughfares ; healthy, strong, quick, bright, 
they shall be happy in themselves and bring 
happiness to all who are with them. The city 
shall be so safe and healthful and peaceful 
that the streets shall be the play-ground of 
the boys and girls, whose active sports shall 
go forward amidst the occupations of the peo- 
ple and the throngs of passing men and wo- 
men. It is a bright picture of peacefulness 
and plenteousness. Nothing could represent 
more strongly or pleasantly the happy state 
of the restored city. The ring of children's 
voices is a city's sweetest music. The sports 
of childhood are the emblem and proof of 



THE CHILDREN OF HE A VEN. uy 

prosperity and peace. Where the quick feet 
of boys and girls quiver in the sunshine and 
their songs of joy pour forth as from the 
throats of birds there is order and security 
and law. Where children are downcast and 
lonely and silent there is surely decline and 
degradation and ill-fortune. Zechariah s mis- 
sion was to awaken the spirit of the dejected 
people, to arouse them to new hope and new 
undertakings, to enkindle the glow of true re- 
vival in religion, in ecclesiastical life and in 
national affairs. The holy and beautiful house 
where their fathers worshipped was to be re- 
built ; the name of Jew was to be made a 
name of honor among the nations ; victory 
was to crown the revived people. With oth- 
ers, he set this significant picture before them: 
"The streets of the city shall be full of boys 
and girls playing in the streets thereof." This 
harmonized with the Hebrew Psalms of res- 
toration and prosperity. Read the 126th, 



uS ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

127th, 128th Psalms, as indicating the Jewish 
ideas, and see how the poetry throbs with the 
joy of the return and the blessing of children. 
The prophetic commentary of Zechariah 
upon these Psalms is typical of the future, 
the heavenly life. The restored Jerusalem is 
a type of the New Jerusalem. To the pious 
Jews the prosperities and glories of the City 
of Zion faintly imaged the magnificence and 
royalties of the Zion above. Their eyes swept 
beyond. Above the roofs and domes and 
walls of the metropolis rose another city 
shining with a more resplendent light, with 
pinnacles and blazing spires of a loftier archi- 
tecture, with homes purer and lovelier, with a 
population more noble and numerous, with 
songs swelling out with sweeter harmonies, 
with employments of a higher because of a 
more spiritual order. There too are streets ; 
but their pavements flash as with burnished 
gold. Families are there, the reunited and 



THE CHILDREN OF HE A VEX, ug 

the blest. And the streets of that city 
"shall be full of boys and girls playing in the 
streets thereof." The full, happy, sportive life 
of childhood enters into the rounded and 
complete life of heaven. 

That there are children in that fair world 
we may be assured. Heaven is the city of 
the saints, and the Lord of it lias prepared 
mansions there for the families whose con- 
stitution he has appointed here. The family 
is the earliest and the best institution. It is 
Edenic. It comes to us from Paradise. It 
will be restored in the new Paradise. There 
will be union and recognition and love on 
high. Those who have been joined in soul- 
union and have known the mysterious affec- 
tion that holds their hearts so closely that 
nothing can break it, that no time, no ab- 
sence, no distance, no trial, no guilt can alto- 
gether destroy it, and who have become at 
the same time heavenly-minded by their faith 



120 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

in the heavenly Father, will be brought to- 
gether in blessed relation after the sunderings 
of the earth are over. Here they may be 
swept apart by the gales of fortune or mis- 
fortune ; by those whirlwinds that wind into 
any group with their omnipotent forces, by 
the kindly currents that float one away from 
others. But at the end, after the discipline, 
the handlings, the cross-bearing, whatever it 
may be, there will be restoration. No more 
marrying, no more giving in marriage, indeed, 
simply perpetuation of ties formed; of families ; 
this life running on and over into that life; 
this life finding its complement, its complete- 
ness, in that. Lovers here will be lovers 
there. The groups that are bound by one 
affection and are separated from others, not 
by any repugnance or alienation, but simply 
by the attraction of their own affection, will 
be reproduced in heaven. The family life is 
divine. God setteth the solitary in families. 



THE CHILDREN OF HEA VEX. 121 

This life will last. The parent will be parent 
still. The mother who gave so much of her 
own life for the life of her child will own the 
/relationship which enfolds mysteriousness 
and creation in it. The child will be no less 
her own on other shores, in better scenes, 
in eternal union. Brother and sister will not 
be outlawed names on high. 

Undoubtedly the children who are taken 
from our earthly homes, under the provisions 
of God's everlasting covenant w 7 ith his peo- 
ple, advance and mature in the life of heaven. 
They do not remain as they were when they 
left the world. They will grow, as the Sav- 
iour grew, in wisdom and stature and in di- 
vine grace. They will gain knowledge and 
experience and they will become real servants 
of Him who has redeemed them and given 
them a place near his throne. We cannot 
expect to find them, as the years pass on, as 
we knew them in our earthly relation, any 



122 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

more than we can expect the children who 
remain on earth to continue in childhood. 
They will mature; they will, we may well 
suppose, attain higher rank than if they had 
known only the advantages of this world. As 
the relation of parent and child loses none of 
its tenderness and sacredness and intimacy in 
the progress which is made in the earthly life, 
so will no affection, no blessedness of kinship 
and tenderest ties, be lost because the children 
are developed under heavenly influences. We 
rejoice in the progress and excellent attain- 
ments of our children who enjoy the instruc- 
tion and culture of the university and the ad- 
vantages of travel and world-acquaintance. 
So may we be made glad by the advancement 
and glory which they may gain to whom are 
awarded the higher culture and the broader 
acquisitions of heaven. Their progressed 
power will be for our pride and joy. 

If home means much here; if it is one of 



THE CHILDREN OF HEAVEN. 123 

the few really God-given names, holding in it 
hopes, memories, sacred passions which 
survive changes, which keep their bright- 
ness and strength through wanderings and 
colonizations, so that it is always where the 
heart is and where those whom the heart 
loves are, its transference to a better world 
will not destroy it, will only ennoble and 
transfigure it. It will mean more on that 
side than it ever meant on this. It will carry 
with it all that it had here, and it will have 
added to it all that it will gain there. It will 
only gain by the transmigration, as the costly 
metals gain in value and in beauty by the pro- 
cesses which develop them into their own puri- 
ty and brilliance. You drop the ore, only 
freckled with shining spots, into the crucible; 
the black and drossy imposing masses are 
detached from the genuine metal and are 
thrown over as waste and useless substance ; 
but below the bright gold trembles in its bil- 



124 ASPECTS OF HE A VEN. 

lovvy beauty and it is poured out and reform- 
ed to be wrought on the hilts of jeweled 
swords and on the coronets of kings! It lay 
darkly in the earth; it flashes now in the 
places of supreme authority and in the magic 
circles of beauty. Through the fire and the 
furnace of trial and of death, so will the home 
gain in purity and value as it emerges into 
the air and the light and the fragrance be- 
yond the skies. It will be fit for the royalties 
and the splendors of its new estate. It will 
honor Him who ordained it, who made it the 
chief jewel of the earth and then fit to shine 
in the magnificence of his court. 

Relations of less significance send their 
holiest influence into the now unseen life: 
and heaven is made more attractive by their 
recognition. Much more will the family 
hold its own and the home gain and the 
blessed recognitions come to the divinest rela- 
tionships. 



THE CHILDREN OF HEA VEN. 125 

The home idea contains the child idea. 
A home without children does not fulfill the 
significance of the term, and a family with- 
out them is barren and unblessed. You can 
remember the enlargement which came with 
your first child. It was as if treasures had 
been emptied at your feet; as though the 
walls of your dwelling had been lifted and 
broadened; as though by a strange suffrage 
you had been raised to some place of honor. 
The world swung in a new atmosphere and 
the sense of your possession in it was en- 
larged, as if heirship had fallen to you. 

You can remember, too, the deep sense 
of loss when that life, so pure and sweet, 
went out. The whole world seemed to have 
gone with it. All other treasure was as 
naught. You were coffined in your sorrow. 
Nothing availed but one steady, strong Hand. 
When that life which was so much to you 
passed 



126 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

"Into the eternal shadow 

That girts our life around, 
Into the infinite silence 

Wherewith Death's shore is bound," 

your heart and your home and the earth 
itself were empty. You could look upwards 
only and not around. 

Home, to meet its signification, needs the 
presence of children. Think of that dear 
child in a home where you often go; full of 
a most exuberant and joyous life, bounding 
with a sense of happy freedom, wearing ever- 
more a happy smile on its sunny features, 
the outward sign of the inner gladness of the 
soul, laughter brimming in the eyes, grace 
characterizing every motion, words of sweet- 
ness greeting you, words of true and some- 
times wonderful meaning revealing the im- 
mortal gem in that beautiful casket. Is not 
that the real treasure and joy of that home? 
And if some day you should go there to 



THE CHILDREN OF HEAVEN. 127 

find silence and loneliness and darkness, you 
would not need to be told what had come to 
pass. Your heart would tell. That place 
would never more be what it had been to 
you. 

Heaven without children would not seem 
like home. A chief element would be lack- 
ing to this idea and relation. Those streets 
must be full of boys and girls playing in the 
streets thereof. The other relations subsist: 
childhood also is perpetuated. The home 
idea necessitates it. 

Many children have gone there. So far 
the majority of those who have begun an 
earthly life have closed it in infancy. They 
have been taken from evil. It was a special 
tenderness for children which our Lord mani- 
fested when he was on earth. He took them 
up in his arms and blessed them. He said, 
14 Suffer little children, and forbid them not, 
to come unto me." He said, " Their angels 



128 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

do always behold the face of my Father in 
heaven." He was their Saviour. For the 
uncounted population whose life here has 
ended in infancy he was the Saviour. He 
knew how full heaven was, and was to be, of 
these first-fruits of his work. The sight of 
the children of Judea and Galilee reminded 
him of what had so often interested him in 
his Father's house. The songs with which 
the children of Jerusalem greeted his en- 
trance into their city reminded him of that 
perfected praise which he had heard "out of 
the mouth of babes and sucklings " near his 
throne. The children of heaven were dear 
to him. They were of his redemption. They 
were under his tuition and training. 

Such are the favored ones : the elect chil- 
dren. There is no school like that. There 
is no tutelage so perfect. It is our loss : it is 
their gain. They are ours still. We give 
them to Christ. He takes them for his own. 



THE CHILDREN OF HEAVEN. 129 

But he keeps them for us. They are safe: 
they are saved. Whatever may be true of 
others in the dark risks of life, these are be- 
yond peril and their blessed immortality is 
assured. It is hard to let them go, to release 
from clasp and enfolding love those who 
have come to us from the Lord, the Maker, 
and have so entwined themselves around all 
the vital members of our being ; to feel that 
we shall see them no more until in the clearer 
climes they shall welcome us home. 

" Day after day we think what they are doing, 

In those bright realms of air ; 
Year after year, their tender steps pursuing, 

Behold them grown more fair. 
Thus do we walk with them and keep unbroken 

The bond which nature gives, 
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, 

May reach them where they live. " 

It were harder to see them on evil ways, 
breaking away from our hands and hearts 

9 



ijo ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

on courses of sin, so spoiling our lives and 
theirs and darkening the very heavens over 
us, which are now so clear and alluring. It 
were harder also to put in our reluctant and 
murmuring negation to the will of Him who 
doeth all things well. 

Whether in that large world, in the celes- 
tial cosmos, there are new creations of child- 
hood, holy beginnings of growing life and 
mind, to be trained in divine knowledge and 
in perfect character, we may not determine. 
But it would fall in with the analogy of na- 
ture, with what we see of the divine ways, 
that the creative power should be so em- 
ployed, and that there should be in the pal- 
aces of the King offspring of his omnipotence, 
successions of living beings richly endowed, 
who should grow up as children grow: the 
princes of heaven. Were this so, not our 
children only would be there; other children 
also, their companions, pure, blessed asso- 



THE CHILDREN OF HEAVEN, iji 

dates and friends, with whom they would run 
on those glad ways, with whom they would 
join in blessed studies, with whom they 
would know and love the Lord who leads 
them. Then would the streets of that city 
be full of boys and girls playing in the 
streets thereof. God's new creations would 
fill the happy heaven with joy, and song, and 
pleasure. 

The children of heaven must be children 
still. Place does not alter their nature. The 
characteristics which are so marked and in- 
teresting, which draw to innocent and intelli- 
gent and unfolding childhood such regard, 
remain. It is no offense to good taste or 
the sense of propriety, or the fitness of 
things, that the children of heaven should be 
what we know children are; that their em- 
ployments should be those that accord with 
the mental and moral qualities of childhood; 
and that, therefore, in that world, pure and 



I 



JJ2 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

holy and glorious as it is, there should be 
the enjoyments and pleasures which belong to 
full young merry life, and that those blessed 
streets should be full of boys and girls play- 
ing in the streets thereof. Our children who 
go there go not to gloom, nor stateliness : 
they are not grown-up children; and they 
find there what they want — the things and 
pleasures which fully satisfy them. God is 
their Father. He, who has filled His crea- 
tions as full of play as of work, who has 
poured around the world the dancing sun- 
light, and covered two-thirds of it with the 
leaping water, and crowded its atmosphere 
with sportive and singing birds and insects, 
and made the morning glad with music and 
the evening sweet with vespers, rejoices in 
the gladness and play of children and gives 
them room in heaven for their fine and free 
indulgence. 

Let us not wish them back to whom has 






THE CHILDREN OF HEA VEN. ijj 

been allotted the privilege of going on before 
and going early. They would not wish to 
come back, nor should we wish to have them 
if once our veiled eyes could look in upon 
those crowded streets, if our dulled ears 
could hear now their ringing voices. We 
mav long for them but not lament them. 
Our hearts may go thitherward : their steps 
may not come hitherward. Nor let us darken 
the pure sunlight of the Lamb in which they 
play, nor awaken a sorrow in their happy 
souls, by the knowledge that we lament their 
loss. Let the word they get from us, from 
time to time, be that we treasure their love as 
a most precious thing in our hearts, that the 
thought of them lifts our aspiration higher 
and makes our step quicker toward their home 
and ours. The way is not so long ; the end 
is not so very far. Sooner than we think the 
flashing pinnacles will lift their lighted spires 
before us; the jeweled gates will swing in- 



134 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

ward for our entrance; songs like those of 
welcome will fill all the air with music; and 
the white hands within that will be the first 
to clasp us, and the loving arms that with 
rapture will be the first to enfold us in their 
embrace, will be of those who at the call of 
God went on before that they might give us 
welcome to the heavenly palaces. 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL V RE WARD. 135 



VIII. 

DIFFERENT DEGREES OF HEAVENLY 
REWARD. 

IT is to be feared that many of those who 
consider themselves to be on the way to 
heaven rest in a kind of vague and dreamy 
view of that blessed world, overlooking the 
fact, which is clearly revealed in the Scrip- 
tures, that the celestial happiness is some- 
thing which is to be gained, something indeed 
which, in a sense, is to be earned, and that the 
degree of each ones blessedness there de- 
pends upon the measure of each ones holi- 
ness here. It is no more true that the stand- 
ing of the student who enters the university 
or the high school is affected by the careful- 
ness and thoroughness of his preparation in 
the lower grades of study, it is no more true 



IJ6 



ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



that the station of men, the rank they hold 
or the position they fill, is determined by the 
diligence and success with which they have 
fitted themselves for their professional calling 
or their manual handicraft, than it is true 
that the relative place in heaven and the rel- 
ative happiness of each soul there will be 
accurately qualified by the life of this world, 
by the service which each one has rendered 
to the Master — always in subordination to 
the sovereign good pleasure of God in be- 
stowing natural endowments, special grace, 
and time and opportunities of service. 

The heavenly life is not so different from 
the earthly life that the philosophy of the 
human mind is extinguished by the change 
of state. That which holds good in all ethi- 
cal principles and in all mental philosophy on 
this side of the line holds equally good on 
that side of the line. It is one and the same 
man who lives here and who lives there. 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL Y REWARD. 137 

Crossing the sea does not revolutionize char- 
acters. Crossing the narrow stream of death 
makes no more revolution. Men are fitting 
themselves to be what they will be, whether 
in New York or in the new heavens. 

It is this, as I look at it, which gives an 
incomparable significance to the Christian 
life. It is this which summons every disciple 
of Christ to a constant watchfulness and a 
strenuous service. It is this which puts 
meaning into every organization and every 
effort of Christian endeavor. It is this which 
makes it so much of an object to begin early 
and to strive unweariedly to follow Christ. 
There are many motives which persuade one 
to the service of Christ; this is one which 
has the stamp of eternity on it. Christ has 
gone into the highest heavens, our forerun- 
ner there, and they will come nearest to 
him, will see most of him and become most 
like him, who shall have served him long- 



ij8 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

est, and most faithfully and successfully, on 
earth. 

When I see how men compete for the 
prizes of this world — when I see how much of 
diligent toil the student puts into the tasks of 
the curriculum that he may carry off the 
honors of the university ; how much of mus- 
cular practice the athlete devotes to the train- 
ing of the corporal man that he may gain the 
race or the game ; how much of intense ap- 
plication, how much of pecuniary outlay and 
of personal sacrifice men will freely give that 
they may attain posts of influence and of 
power, that they may achieve political ends, 
that they may be successful in literature or 
art, that they may stand among the moneyed 
kings of the world, that they may command 
the suffrages of obliged peoples and wear the 
recognized crowns of authority, and have, in 
one department or another of human so- 
ciety, leadership — I think how much stronger 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL Y RE WARD. ijg 

the appeal is to all the noblest ambitions and 
aspirations of any immortal man to fit him- 
self for a high place in heaven ; to covet a 
crown that shall never fade ; to become the 
possessor of bliss that shall not pall on the 
senses, that shall only grow purer and sweeter 
the longer it is enjoyed ; in a word, to become 
prepared as fully as possible for the higher 
degrees of those rewards which God is gra- 
ciously pleased to bestow upon his people. 

It may be thought, it may be felt, espe- 
cially by those who are languid and ineffi- 
cient and who do not like any spiritual 
exertion, and as well by those who are 
worldly and do not relish very much of re- 
ligion, that any place, the lowest place even, 
in a world like that, is all-sufficient and should 
satisfy the longings of any soul. Undoubtedly, 
any place, the lowest place, there is a thing to 
be grateful for, and is all that worldly and in- 
different persons can expect to reach, and is 



140 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

more than any one will merit ; but the emi- 
nent rewards should appeal to the diligence 
and fidelity and aspiration of all who hold 
heaven high, and would, here and hereafter, 
live near to Christ. 

The fact of the different degrees of the 
heavenly rewards is conditioned on reason and 
the nature of things, as also on the wisdom of 
God : it is both philosophical and Scriptur- 
al. Objection is sometimes made to it on the 
ground that God is not partial in the bestowal 
of rewards, that he loves all his people alike, 
that they share equally in the provisions of 
grace in the Fathers house, and that salva- 
tion and the results of it are not of merit but 
are of unmerited grace. These points will 
appear in their true light as we consider the 
central principle of this chapter. 

The analogy between the present state of 
good men and their future state would indi- 
cate different degrees of happiness hereafter. 



'DEGREES OF HEAVENLY REWARD. 141 

The enjoyment of Christians in the relig- 
ious life now vastly varies. Some find con- 
stant and almost unalloyed joy in the service 
of Christ. Their habitual feeling mounts 
almost to enthusiasm in the duties of relig- 
ion. With joy do they draw water out of the 
wells of salvation. 

Others are in a settled peace of mind, 
without excitement and without depression. 
Others still walk in the gloom ; fears mingle 
with their hopes : sorrow is the woof if joy is 
the web in the weaving of life ; like Naomi, 
they say, " Call me Mara." Yet all these are 
children of the same Father and share in his 
love; they are heirs of the same covenant 
and believers of the same promises, and they 
are destined to an inheritance purchased for 
them by the same blood. The degree of their 
present enjoyment is different now; and this 
suggests that it will be different hereafter. 
Although sorrow and gloom will be absent in 



142 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

the world of light, the amount of blessedness 
will be unlike in exact analogy with the expe- 
rience of this world. 

Also, the differing capacities of minds 
qualify them for diverse rewards. Men are 
not made alike. As no two faces are alike, 
so no two minds are alike. Men are made 
for what they are to be, made to fulfill God s 
purposes. God's creative power produces 
multitudinous variety. The leaves on the 
same tree vary and the myriad blooms of 
one plant are somewhat unlike. Mental ca- 
pacities are of manifold grades. Some minds 
will hold more than others, and so their ex- 
periences, whether of sorrow or of joy, will be 
diverse. But such as we are such shall we be. 
We shall shuffle off this mortal coil, but the 
interior principle, that which preeminently 
makes man what he is, will remain the same 
in the future as it is now. Each man shall 
carry his own individuality with him in what- 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL Y REWARD. i.ij 

ever world he may live. That cannot be laid 
aside as the body is laid aside. There is no 
escape from it. It cannot be changed as 
habits are changed. Habits are the mind's 
clothes; but the mind retains its personality. 
As we are now, as we leave this world, so, rel- 
atively, in the powers and capacities of our 
minds shall we be in the future world. The 
new creation does not conform all minds to 
one standard ; no more will the entrance into 
heaven. Paul and those whom he led to 
Christ were vastly unlike. Paul is the same 
man in heaven that he was in Rome or at 
Athens. The disciples in whose conversion 
he rejoiced are the same also. But Paul with 
his great capacity for happiness, with the pro- 
found discipline which his apostleship gave 
him, with the consecrated character which he 
so largely developed, is capable of untold 
blessedness beyond that of his immature con- 
verts. Nothing that is gained in this world 



144 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

is lost. Christian knowledge is the prepara- 
tion for heavenly knowledge. Attainments 
now made in holiness wall fit one for associa- 
tion with holy beings and for engagement in 
holy pursuits and for the enjoyment of holy 
pleasures in heaven. The more one has be- 
come conformed to God, to his will and his 
image, through the varied disciplines of human 
life, through sorrow and loneliness and the 
discharge of duty and the joy of self-denial 
and the peace of cross-bearing, the larger will 
be his capabilities for the bliss of the skies, 
the nearer will he stand to the throne, and the 
nobler will be his start for the heavenly ac- 
quisitions. 

The degree of the reward will depend 
upon the capacity for the reward. The ca- 
pacity will vary as the individuals vary. 
There will be endless variety to the rewards 
in heaven. Rank on rank the redeemed shall 
surround the throne of their King; crowns 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL V RE WARD. 143 

shall gleam with differing splendor ; tones of 
harps shall swell with varying melody; but 
through all these concentric circles one tide of 
joy shall flow — fuller to those who are nearer 
the throne, but all that they can hold to those 
who are more remote from it — triumphant and 
glad and grateful in its song-burst to Him who 
has redeemed them and made them kings and 
priests unto God. 

Then too the natural product of religion 
in this life results in differing rewards in the 
life to come. We are not living now merely 
for this world. Whether we think of it or 
not — and we do not think enough of it — this 
life, with all that we garner in it, goes over 
into the next life. The blessedness of heav- 
en consists of the feelings and experiences 
which belong to the holy soul in any possible 
condition of its existence. There is nothing 
conventional or forced about it. Souls are 
not made happy in heaven whether they will 

10 



146 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

it or not. They are happy because it belongs 
to them to be so. " The mind is its own place; 
and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell 
of heaven." Real joy springs from within the 
mind itself rather than from exciting condi- 
tions without; as the sweetest perennial foun- 
tain is that which is fed from subterranean 
sources rather than from surface showers. 

That Christian who has been made strong 
by what he has gone through, into the very 
composition of whose being the matchless 
graces of the Spirit have been wrought, will 
find his reward wherever he may be placed. 
The dungeon at Philippi rang with the praises 
of God. The martyr-soul at the stake flamed 
with the visions of heaven. Our dead have 
left us with sweetest farewells, the joy of the 
Lord overpassing the pains of departure and 
dissolution. And so the eminent Christian 
will store the speedier and the larger harvests 
in the heavenly garners. Memory will bring 



DEGREES OF HEAVENLY REWARD. 147 

to one mind much more of reward than it can 
bring to another, as it goes back over a track 
of light, of moral beauty, of religious endeavor 
and success. Estimate, too, the joy which, in 
the renewal of old friendships in heaven, shall 
come to one as they meet and greet him who 
by his fidelity were led to Christ, and so to 
heaven, which otherwise they would not have 
enjoyed. The social life of heaven, so far as 
it shall be a continuance of that of this w r orld, 
will contribute to different degrees of future 
reward. 

Further, God will express his approbation 
of eminent and steadfast holiness by the be- 
stowal of hish rewards. The rewards of 
heaven are not those only which are the 
natural product of piety; they are conferred 
in part directly by the Redeemer. It is his 
prerogative to allot blessedness to those who 
have been faithful to him. True it is that 
none merit any reward ; in one view, all are 



148 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

unprofitable servants, and have done only 
that which was their duty to do. But when 
God announces his purpose to reward each 
one according to his own labor we feel that 
the divine wisdom is in it, and that it is alto- 
gether worthy of him so to express his ap- 
proval of those who have most glorified him 
in strenuous service. An inheritance, incor- 
ruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away, is to be distributed among the heirs of 
God. Some shall come into large posses- 
sions. Among the crowns there are some of 
surpassing brilliance. Among the harps there 
are some of most melodious tone. Among 
the thrones and mansions there are some 
more superb than others. No one will w r ish 
to supplant the twelve apostles, whose twelve 
thrones will be luminous among the seats of 
honor in heaven. There will be no envy of 
those who, having suffered martyrdom for 
the name of Jesus, shall wear on their heads 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL Y REWARD. 149 

the gemmed diadems of the kingdom. All 
will feel that it is fit that St. Paul, who 
counted not his life dear to himself for the 
love he bore to Christ, shall be honored 
above the thief who repented on the cross. 
Those self-sacrificing servants of our Lord 
who gave up home, and all most dear, that 
they might carry forth his gospel, will be 
gladly accorded their hundred-fold reward 
in this life and in that which is to come. 
Every soul will rejoice in the promotion of 
the humble disciple who was unknown and 
unhonored of men but who suffered in ob- 
scurity for the Master, as he takes his place 
in the beautiful abode which Christ's own 
hand has made ready for him. The relative 
worth and rank of all shall be made manifest 
as each shall receive his own reward accord- 
ing to his own labor. 

It is well to consider also that this princi- 
ple is a revelation of Scripture. The great 



ijo ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

Biblical law, whose application runs through 
all life, is that men shall reap as they have 
sown. He who sows sparingly shall reap also 
sparingly : he who sows bountifully shall reap 
also bountifully. Glory, honor and peace 
shall be given to the good workers. Some 
are saved so as by fire : to others an abun- 
dant entrance is administered into the king- 
dom. As one star differeth from another star 
in glory, so shall it be with those who are 
glorified in heaven. We read of the " right- 
eous man's reward," and of the " prophet's 
reward," as though each one had his specific 
reward. Some shall receive twenty fold, some 
fifty fold, some one hundred fold for their dis- 
tinguished services. All are to receive ac- 
cording to the deeds done in the body. Many 
who are first in human judgment shall be 
last in the judgment of God. Many who are 
last among men shall be first in the regard of 
God. Small and nameless stars, whose rays 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL V REWARD. ijr 

were scarcely recognized on earth, shall wax 
in size and splendor until they shall far out- 
shine the suns that dazzled us in time. The 
lowly Christian who toiled in faithfulness and 
turned many to righteousness shall far out- 
rank those whose religion was of formal ser- 
vices as for Christ. In the parable of the 
Talents the Lord delivered "to each accord- 
ing to his several ability." According to 
their fidelity in the use of them was their re- 
ward. So also in the parable of the Pounds, 
when each servant received one pound : he 
who made ten pounds was given authority 
over ten cities, and he who made five pounds 
was given authority over five cities. The 
parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard does 
not conflict with this. They commenced 
work, some in the morning, some at noon, 
some later still, and at night " they received 
every man a shilling." This parable teaches 
that men are not to dictate to God what 



IS 2 ASPECTS OF HE A VEJV. 

they shall receive ; that he gives to each one 
that which he has promised to give. It is 
not always that the longest labor wall have 
the largest reward. Quality is of more sig- 
nificance than quantity. But each shall re- 
ceive his own reward. 

In what manner the heavenly rewards are 
to be bestowed can be only approximately 
conjectured from what the Scriptures inci- 
dentally state. In the sublime argument of 
the apostle for the resurrection, where his 
periods glow as in the rhythm and march 
of a lofty lyric, he uses the significant phrase, 
11 There is one glory of the sun, and another 
glory of the moon, and another glory of the 
stars ; for one star differeth from another star 
in glory. So also is the resurrection of the 
dead." As the bodies of the pious dead come 
forth from their graves to be gifted with 
strength and beauty and immortality and 
glory, God, in their new construction and 



DEGREES OF HE A VENL Y RE WARD. ijj 

constitution, may confer peculiar honor on 
those who have been most devoted to him, 
and may make the glorified bodies of his 
people the perpetual witnesses of his distinct- 
ive rewards. 

Old prophecy asserted, " They that be 
wise shall shine as the brightness of the fir- 
mament ; and they that turn many to right- 
eousness as the stars forever and ever." In 
the visions of the Apocalypse the redeemed 
are represented as surrounding the throne of 
the Almighty and as permitted to come near 
to him. Now, to come near to royalty is 
a mark of honor. Nearest in the circles of 
the glorified, as they adore the King, may be 
those who are accounted most faithful. They 
shall behold more of the brightness of the 
divine glory ; shall learn more of the deep 
things of God ; shall receive more of the 
divine favors. 

In the vast kingdom one who has been of 



IS 4 ASPECTS OF HE A VEN. 

eminent service shall have authority over ten 
cities. In manifold modes, evidently, God 
can reward his servants. 

If it be so, that each one is to receive, in 
the Biblical phrase, his own reward according 
to his own labor, each one should be stimu- 
lated to begin early and to continue faithfully 
to serve Christ. So may we gain a glory and 
a blessedness that shall be our incomputable 
reward. Bearing the cross with humility and 
courage, standing forth for the beloved Mas- 
ter in every place, in the warring rivalries of 
the world ranking ourselves evermore on the 
side of the dear Redeemer, putting forth in 
every way the generous exertions of Chris- 
tian endeavor, there shall be no dispute of the 
crown that we shall wear, of the fine authority 
that shall be our investiture, of the reward 
that God s own hand shall give us, of the love 
and the glory that shall make our eternity 
bright and blessed. 



SURPRISE A T HEA VENL Y RE WARDS. ijj 



IX. 

SURPRISE AT THE HEAVENLY 
REWARDS. 

THE introduction to the heavenly life 
must be full of peculiar surprises. 
Transference from a world like this to 
a world like that states, in its own terms, a 
change unlike any other. The citizen of a 
land like ours, passing over the seas to the 
old historic lands, is possessed with wonder 
at the strange sights that burst upon his 
vision. He stands in Trafalgar Square, 
with the monuments of London's old civil- 
ization around him ; memorials of great 
men whose undying fame survives them; 
buildings devoted to art and legislation and 
worship ; the towers of the Parliament 



ij6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

House, representing the glory of the em- 
pire : the gray towers of the majestic Abbey, 
monumental of the religious reverence of a 
great people : representatives of all nation- 
alities bringing the tributes of submission 
and loyalty to the world's mightiest capital : 
and it is as though a new world opened to 
him. On one day he opens his eyes in a 
city like Antwerp, where the novelty of every 
sight is a marvel, the Hotel de Ville recalling 
the burgomasters and judges and citizens 
of ancient days, the Cathedral full of glory 
within and, without, pointing with its wonder- 
ful spire to the glory beyond : and the amaze- 
ment takes his breath away and he hardly 
knows whether he is in the body or out of 
the body. 

But this experience is a feeble likeness of 
the astonishment which will fill one to whom 
it is permitted to enter heaven. Paris and 
Rome, Jerusalem and Calcutta, are all earthly 



SURPRISE AT HEA VENL V REWARDS. ij7 

cities : and while there is much in them that 
may be foreign to our thought and habit 
they yet have some resemblance to our own ; 
each one is the metropolis of men. Heaven 
is the metropolis of God. It is the residence 
of angels. Its antiquity is eternal. Its wealth 
is infinite. The architecture of the City of 
God is unlike anything of human design. 
Its throne is of dazzling glory. Light, unlike 
the shining and the flames that blaze over 
the earth, the light of the divine glory, illum- 
ines it. Its residents are pure spirits. They, 
then, who are transferred from this world to 
that world will be filled with strange surprise. 
It will be all new and wonderful and glorious. 
The change from the doubt and fear, which 
many carried through their earthly life, to the 
certainty of their salvation will contribute to 
this surprise. It is a patent fact, and one 
which is not difficult to explain, that many 
Christians, many excellent Christians even, 



ijS ASPECTS OF HEA VEX. 

many of whose salvation others are confident, 
are all their life-time subject to bondage of 
doubt and fear in respect to their acceptance 
with Christ. They have no doubt of their 
sincere repentance and faith ; they know that 
they truly love the Saviour who has died for 
them. But they fail to accept and appropri- 
ate the promises for themselves. They have 
hope, but fear is mingled with it. They have 
peace, but doubt crowds in upon it. The 
region through which they journey is not all 
light. Mists float in upon it and clouds hang 
gloomily over it. At times they rise to a 
mount of vision and get a sweep of land- 
scapes and a sight of skies which are full of 
loveliness and gladness for them. Then they 
descend into the valley where the fogs lie low 
and heavy. So there is an alternation of ex- 
perience which reduces the reward of faith 
and the fulfillment of the promises. Ask 
them if they are Christians, and their answer 



5 URPRISE AT HEA VENL Y RE WARDS, ijg 

betrays their wavering conviction. Ask them 
if they are without hope, and silently they 
shudder at the bewildering and repellent 
thought. Often it is the most reverent and 
trusting disciple who is the most harassed 
with troublesome suspicion of himself. The 
over-bold cannot be the most trusted in trial 
and peril. It was Peter who would not deny 
the Lord though he should die with Him. Yet 
the* remark of a simple maid threw him off 
his balance, and on the night when his Lord 
was crucified he cursed, and swore that he 
did not know Him. In the days of persecution, 
when faith was brought to the test of flame 
and sword and beast, it was the timid and 
distrustful disciples often who went in holy 
courage to torture and to death, choosing to 
dare and suffer all things rather than to deny 
him who was their souls confidence and joy. 
Distrust, if it is to be of one's self, of one's 
own goodness or ability, so that it be united 



i6o ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

to a strong reliance on Christ, is a virtue 
rather than a fault, a defense rather than a 
weakness. But it will be a surpassing sur- 
prise to those who while they were on the 
journey hardly dared to hope that they 
should attain to any reward, who lived in 
fear and possibly died in fear, to find them- 
selves owned and honored of Christ and ad- 
mitted to the full satisfaction of the heavenly 
state. It will be a delightful release from 
the solicitude of the present to enter on the 
frontier of a future so blessed, to know that 
heaven, after all, is gained. It will be a glad 
exchange, the world of trial for the world of 
holiness, the body of death for the glorified 
body of the saved, earthly anxieties and gloom 
for undisturbed peace and security. 

The trembling disciple who hardly dared 
look upward, who could only smite upon the 
breast and cry, u God be merciful to me a 
sinner!" will find himself near the throne and 



S URPRISE A T HE A VENL Y RE WARDS. i6r 

his glad utterance will be, "Glory to God in 
the highest!" The lowly handmaid of the 
Lord who bore affliction as the chastening 
which her truant soul needed, and who never 
ceased to fear that she should come short of 
the glory to which she faintly looked, will 
sing the song of gratitude for her easy vic- 
tory through Christ And many who bore 
the lot of tribulation will be filled with over- 
mastering surprise that they have reached 
the fair home that they longed for, and have 
seen the King in his beauty to whom their 
souls were loyal. Can it be, they will say, 
that we are indeed here ? Can it be that our 
wavward feet indeed stand on these eternal 
heights, that our worldly voices are lifted in 
those heavenly songs, that our dubious bat- 
tle has eventuated in such glorious victory, 
that we are certainly in the presence and 
the home of Him who dwelleth in light un- 
approachable? 

ii 



162 ASPECTS GF HEAVEN. 

Surprise will be occasioned by the con- 
sciousness of the redeemed that they did not 
merit such reward. As they look back upon 
their lives, as they review the deeds done in 
the body, they will feel that the retrospect is 
unsatisfying; that there has been a poverty 
of achievement, a superfluity of neglect and 
unbelief, an inconsistency of practice, which 
merit reproof rather than reward. As they 
realize that they are indeed with Christ and 
that they behold his glory, that they are with 
the loyal angels whose greatest gratification 
has been to be true to their King, that they 
are with Abraham, and Moses, and David, 
and Isaiah, and John, and Polycarp, and 
Luther, and Edwards, and Livingstone, and 
Brainerd, and the great company of faithful 
ones of whom the world was not worthy, the 
goodly fellowship of the prophets, the glori- 
ous company of the apostles, the noble army 
of martyrs, the holy church which throughout 



SURPRISE A T HE A VENL Y RE WRDS. 163 

the ages has worthily upheld the Name that is 
above every name, they will feel humbled and 
astonished that such as they can be thought 
fit to appear there. What have we done, they 
will ask, to deserve all this? The answer in 
their souls will be that it is not on account of 
any merit of their own that they are so hon- 
ored by the Son of God. Nothing in their 
lives gives them a title to emoluments and 
blessedness of such exalted character. " My 
life," will one and another say, "even after I 
professed to be the servant of Christ, was a 
poor equivalent for what he had done for me. 
It looks now like a long series of neglects, 
of ingratitude and murmuring and excuses 
from duty. My torpid resolutions of fidelity 
yielded in the temptations of the world. My 
vows of obedience were like tow in flame. I 
stood in the church, but my heart was in the 
world. Verily, I was an unprofitable servant, 
and I deserve no reward. 






164 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

" But what do I see ? I am among the re- 
deemed from every nation and all the ages, 
those whose names I revered, whose charac- 
ters I admired. I am in the presence of 
Christ and I look upon his beloved face, and 
he looks upon me with a tenderness which 
characterized all his life on earth, as though 
I indeed am his. It is almost too much to 
believe: yet it is, it must be, true. I, un- 
worthy, sinful, am saved. Prodigal as I was, 
unfit to be even a servant in the Father's 
house, I am honored as a son and an heir. 
I did not think of this ; I did not live for it. 
My wonder and my praise will ever be that 
I am a sinner saved by grace." 

Such shall be the feeling of the holiest of 
the redeemed. St. Paul, filled as his apostle- 
ship was with continuous service, energetic 
and untiring even unto death as was his con- 
secration to the Master, whose he was and 
whom he served, will be sensible that there 



SURPRISE A T HE A VENL Y RE WARDS. 165 

was nothing in his life to merit such reward ; 
that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him 
that runneth, but of God that hath mercy ; 
and evermore his confession will be, " By the 
grace of God I am what I am." Abraham 
and Isaiah and John will have the same sur- 
prise from the consciousness of their own 
want of . merit of such heavenly rewards. 
All the redeemed will acknowledge that they 
have come far short of that which it was their 
duty to do. Yet things which eye saw not 
and ear heard not, and which entered not 
into the heart of man, hath God prepared for 
them that love him. 

The future surprise will spring from the 
knowledge of the occasion of the rew r ard. 
Since the Lord went back to his waiting 
throne invested with the body which he wore 
on earth he has sustained a peculiar relation 
to suffering humanity, especially to his suffer- 
ing friends. He was despised and rejected of 



166 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

men ; a Man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief. He was poor and had not where to 
lay his head. Now those who love him, who 
are poor and sad and lonely and heavy- 
laden, are objects of his regard. He feels for 
them an undisguised sympathy. He is not 
ashamed to call them brethren. In all their 
distress he is distressed. On his throne he 
does not forget them. Still, as in the flesh, 
he is moved with compassion for them. For 
them he has gone to prepare a place ; and he 
purposes to make them joint heirs with him- 
self in the inheritance of his mediatorship; to 
give them kingship and priesthood in that 
kingdom which will belong to him as Re- 
deemer. They who come out of the great 
tribulation are they who are before the 
throne and over whom He that sitteth on 
the throne shall spread his tabernacle. " God 
shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." 
So it is that every act of kindness and love 



SURPRISE A T HE A VENL Y RE WARDS. 167 

shown to them he regards as shown to him- 
self ; and all such acts become the occasion 
of the surprising rewards of heaven. The 
poor and suffering disciples are the represen- 
tatives of the despised and bruised Christ. 
Through them his heart is reached. Little 
favors to them are treasured and remembered 
by the Lord. The cup of cold water given 
to a thirsty disciple, in his name, is in effect 
given to him. The bread passed to the fam- 
ishing is as bread of which the Master par- 
took at your hand. The shelter which was 
given to one who was chilled and homeless is 
hospitality to the Beloved, who knocketh, 
whose head is filled with dew and his locks 
with the drops of the night ; not to an angel 
unawares but to the Lord of angels himself. 
It is permitted to you, from your abundance, 
to clothe the naked and to prepare them for 
the house of worship ; to watch by the bed of 
pain and by your gentle ministry to waken 



168 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

hope which was well-nigh dead, confidence 
which had faded out, memory and gratitude 
and joy in the enfeebled mind ; to cheer the 
wretched prisoner in his gloomy dungeon 
with words of comfort and with the hope of 
deliverance. You did not know it, but it was 
the Christ whom your bounty clothed and 
fed and whom your sympathy cheered. You 
may forget it : he will not forget it. The 
forgiveness which you gave to one who had 
wronged you, who, once your friend, had 
turned to be your enemy, is accepted as 
proof that you too would be forgiven by the 
Lord. 

You did not think that these things which 
had passed out of your mind would meet you 
in the reckonings of the judgment and would 
prove to be the arbitrament of your destiny. 
But here they are, to your surprise and eter- 
nal wonder! "Inasmuch as ye did it unto 
one of these my brethren, even these least, ye 



SURPRISE A T HEA VENL Y RE WARDS. itg 

did it unto me." Eternal life is the bestowed 
reward ! 

This surprise will arise from the revelation 
of the rewards themselves. We speak of them 
as though we knew something of them. We 
use the Scripture terms, but they have a 
meaning deeper than the definitions of our 
speech. We look that way, but our eyes have 
not the telescopic power that we need. We 
listen, but our ears can only catch the outer 
wave of blessed melody. We give thought 
free sweep, but the glorious reality mocks our 
thought. We can know but little of a life so 
far removed in its spirituality and its blessed- 
ness from ours. The Scriptures set it before 
us in language as well adapted to our present 
comprehension as any. They speak of the 
duration and the perfection and the glory of 
the reward. They speak of a place delight- 
ful with light and wealth and beauty and full 
happiness. They tell us of a city splendid in 



iyo ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

its architecture and its throne and its streets 
and streams and living trees ; grand beyond 
any earthly metropolis. They give us the 
idea of life free from sorrows and suffering 
and separation, satisfying in its pleasures and 
its society and its knowledge and its sublime 
progress. And they state, beyond all this, 
that Gods own hand bestows positive bless- 
ings upon his redeemed children. After all, 
it is only the revelation itself that will set it 
forth. And that revelation, from its begin- 
ning, through its endless continuance, will be 
full of wonder. Visions of loveliness, songs 
of melody, blessed fellowship, the sight of 
God, service satisfying, all this at the begin- 
ning, with unending prospects of wider 
knowledge and richer experience, in which 
new revelations shall break upon the soul, 
shall define and continue and augment the 
blessed surprises. Unceasingly heaven shall 
grow more dear, God more glorious, the Re- 



S URPRISE A T HE A VENL Y RE WARDS. 171 

deemer more beloved, every pleasure and pur- 
suit more delightful, every soul more blessed. 
The growing revelation of the surpassing 
greatness and sweetness of the rewards shall 
constantly augment the surprise. And never, 
in all the growth of the saved, in all their prog- 
ress upward, from the glad time that they 
cross the threshold till they stand near the 
throne, while they become more and more 
like God, will the surpassing and surprising 
revelation, beyond all that they could have 
imagined, ever come to an end ! 

Now, our life is here : but here and now 
it may be a life preparatory to the full and 
satisfying life beyond. We have not indeed 
the Saviour in person with us, but we have 
those who represent him and are dear to him. 
We cannot draw water from the well of Sa- 
maria for him who sat weary on its rocky 
curb. We cannot give bread to him who, in 
his earthly mission, fasted so much that he 



172 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

might overcome the tempter and achieve our 
salvation. We cannot invite to our dwelling 
One who, though the foxes had holes and the 
birds of the air had nests, had not where to 
lay his head. We cannot, like the dear wo- 
men of Galilee, minister to him of our sub- 
stance as he goes about through cities and 
villages preaching and bringing the good tid- 
ings of the kingdom of God. We cannot 
watch and pray with him in Gethsemane as 
the mighty agony of his redemptive work 
over-masters his soul. We cannot be hon- 
ored, as was Simon the Cyrenian, to lift up 
the heavy cross from the bowed and sinking 
frame of Him who was led as a lamb to the 
slaughter. We cannot follow him on the 
mournful path to Golgotha with that great 
multitude of the people and of women who 
bewailed and lamented him. We cannot 
stand by the cross with his dear mother and 
his mother's sister and the other stricken 



S URPRISE A T HE A VENL Y RE WARDS, r/j 

disciples in tender and mournful sympathy 
for our divine Sufferer. 

But his poor we have always with us. 
His suffering and burdened disciples are 
here. What we do for them shall not lose 
its reward. If we love one another he will 
reckon it as love for himself. If we bear 
the crosses of our brethren it is as though 
we bore his cross. By tender sympathy, by 
generous magnanimity, by helpful charity, 
we may fulfill the law of Christ. So we may 
live in growing preparation for our heaven- 
ly reward, when the unseen things shall be 
revealed in unanticipated wonder and joy ! 



x?4 ASPECTS OF HEA YEN. 



X. 

RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 

THERE are those who object to the fact 
of the recognition of friends in heav- 
en. They believe in the recognition of 
friends in Europe; they believe in knowing 
those from whom they have been parted on 
earth, but whom they meet after years of sep- 
aration have wrought phenomenal changes in 
their bodily appearance and in their mental 
stature; they have recognized old class- 
mates who have drifted away from them on 
the tides which are bearing one man in one 
direction and another man in another di- 
rection, but who have at length returned to 
the alma mater very different men in their age 
from what they were in the flush and buoy- 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. i/j 

ancy of youth, but they have the idea that 
they will not know a single old friend in heav- 
en I St. Paul did not have that idea. He 
could not have instructed his friends to be 
comforted by the words he had given them 
if he had advanced to them nothing more con- 
soling than the blank and chilling hypothesis 
that the saint who enters the gate of pearl will 
find himself lonely and friendless in that home 
of redeemed men. 

The objectors claim that the bodies of the 
saints will be so entirely changed that recog- 
nition will be impossible. Instead of material 
bodies they will have spiritual bodies ; and 
how can we discern persons in spiritual 
bodies ? they ask. But will not the spiritual 
body even more fitly than the earthly ena- 
ble us to recognize the soul we so well 
know? Will not the spiritual discernment 
recognize the person just as easily in the spir- 
itual body as the material eye would recog- 



176 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

nize the person in the material body ? Be- 
sides, recognition is not through the external 
form solely. Blind men know each other. 
Friends discern one another in the dark. We 
know our friends though a screen may di- 
vide us from them. There is mental recog- 
nition. There is mental communion with 
those who are far from us. By a new in- 
troduction we come to the knowledge again 
of those whom we had forgotten. 

Our contention has nothing to do with 
the mode, but with the fact only. The mode 
is a heavenly one, and perhaps we may not 
fully grasp it now : it is not necessary that 
we should. 

It is objected that the human relation- 
ships cease with this life; as Christ said, 
that in heaven they neither marry nor are 
given in marriage, but are like the angels: 
and that as these relationships are ended the 
love and friendship that went with them will 



RECOGNI TION OF FRIENDS IN HE A VEN. 177 

cease. This does not follow. The marriage 
state will not be renewed, but the love that 
existed when persons were in that state will 
remain. Married persons may here be sepa- 
rated, one may die early, the other live to old 
age, but the love lasts, pure, strong, tender, 
beautiful, as the years wax and go. You can- 
not think that she who was a " widow indeed," 
and who cherished in undecaying memory the 
husband of her youth through the long and 
lonely years of her waiting, to whom every 
memorial of the true man grew more sacred, 
who kept embalmed in her memory all his 
kindnesses and sacrifices, whose life was 
transfigured by the recollection of joys that 
are past and by anticipations of joys that are 
to come, will, all at once, by passing into a 
new room of the Father's house, forget every- 
thing that has been so precious and cher- 
ished. You cannot think that he who won 
the hand and the heart of one who became to 

12 



17S ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

him more than his own self — who through the 
changes of their brief life found in her a friend 
who never changed, standing by him in the 
sweet loyalty of a devoted soul, suffering 
more than he suffered in every pain he 
bore, watching with unflagging interest every 
step of his progress, every event that helped 
or retarded him ; and who, when she went 
away alone, stood mute and broken by the 
ashes of their household fellowship, recalling 
every word she had spoken and every act she 
had done and every ministry with which she 
had blessed him inherforgetfulness of herself 
and in her longing for his love ; and who, it 
may be, had wrought her biography into po- 
etic memorial, in which every scene and every 
expression and every sacrament glowed with 
the intensity of a passion which death had 
only sublimated and hallowed — will, in what 
may be new conditions indeed, but conditions 
only more refined and blessed, forget forever 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. jyg 

all that has made him what he is and has 
tended to prepare him for what he eternally 
will be. The earthly and bodily relation may 
not indeed be perpetuated ; but the mental 
and spiritual relation, which is the noblest 
and purest element in our affection, will re- 
main and will be matured and will add to the 
bliss and fellowship of heaven. The most 
blessed friendship in this world is that which 
springs from exalted sentiments, from heav- 
enly aspirations, from joys and hopes that are 
eternal ; and these are the very conditions of 
heavenly friendship. 

Objection is also made that if there shall 
be the recognition of friends in heaven there 
will also be the sad consciousness that other 
friends are absent, and that the happiness of 
heaven would thus be made imperfect. We 
must acknowledge that the absence of beloved 
friends from the heavenly society would be in 
itself painful. It is a mournful thought now 



iSo ASPECTS OF HEAVEN: 

that some of our dearest friends are not with 
us in the faith of Christ, are not with us on 
the journey home. As we are made sorrow- 
ful now by this fact so might we well be in 
heaven, especially if we shall carry to that 
world the consciousness that we did not do 
all we could for their salvation, by correct ex- 
ample, by faithful prayer, by personal influ- 
ence. We must acknowledge that there are 
conditions of unhappiness in that. 

On the other hand, there is a philosophi- 
cal fact which is important in this connec- 
tion ; viz., that the mind can be so filled with 
blessedness from one source as to be unmind- 
ful of misery from another source. The 
martyr in the midst of flaming fagots will 
sing the Christian songs of triumph ; will die, 
in what we should consider agony, w r ith 
voices of blessing on his burning lips ! It 
was this principle which enabled the apostle 
to say, "As dying, and behold we live; as sor- 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 1S1 

rowful, yet always rejoicing." The saints in 
heaven will have perfect confidence in God, 
will recognize the fact that even his severe 
judgments are true and righteous altogether. 
They will be perfectly blessed from the 
sources of blessing which will be full and 
perfect, and they will not be occupied with 
the occasions of sorrow. 

Besides, the affection which was only of 
the world, which was not hallowed and made 
strong by the love of the Saviour, will lose 
its power. We know how it is in this world. 
We had a friend in whom we confided, but 
who proved himself unworthy, dishonorable, 
and we turned away from him disappointed, 
and we let him pass out of our thoughts and 
forgot him. Love, the love that lasts, the 
love which is of the heavenly life, must be 
loftier than merely worldly love. It must be 
grounded in helpfulness of one another to- 
ward Christ and heaven, in personal union to 



iS2 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

the Redeemer, in fitness for fellowship in all 
that is great and glorious with God. 

Such are the objections to this precious 
truth ; as we consider them they do not ap- 
pear to have much weight. 

Let us look at it in the light of reason. 
There are no facts which indicate to us that 
the human mind is changed in its faculties 
or powers by death. Men go to the very 
moment of death exactly as we have always 
known them. They have the same feelings, 
the same thoughts, the same purposes. The 
body may be essentially changed ; the mind 
is not touched nor altered. 

Death removes the mind from one envi- 
ronment to another. It passes, as we may 
say, into another room. But its faculties are 
unimpaired. It is not consistent with sound 
reason to suppose that the unchanged soul 
will not be employed as it was wont to be 
employed ; that it will not retain its former 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 183 

nature and character. There will be the 
old intelligence and the old susceptibilities. 
There will be meditation on the same themes 
and gratification with the same objects. No 
knowledge, no habits, will be lost by the mere 
change of state. It will be affected by going 
to heaven, as it would be affected by going to 
Europe. Across the sea are strange, grand 
scenes : civilization that is old ; memorials of 
eventful history ; battle-fields on which the 
world's fate hung; cathedrals vocal with the 
worship of a thousand years ; libraries hold- 
ing the treasures of nations' best thought; 
homes with the associations of many genera- 
tions. But it is the same mind, in the use of 
the same powers, that finds delight in the 
contemplation of England's glory and Swit- 
zerland's scenery and Italy's renowned art 
and entrancing landscapes, which used to be 
employed in the studies and business of the 
home-land. 



i8 4 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

We pass into a land of greater glory and 
higher renown and nobler society, where the 
gates are said to be of pearl and the streets 
are of gold and the throne is of a brightness 
too dazzling for human sight, and where an- 
gels are the loyal inhabitants, and where the 
eternal Christ reveals himself in tender love 
to those whom he has ransomed. We go 
there with the members of our family, with 
the friends to whom we have given our un- 
changing love, with those whom we have 
helped to the Saviour, with whom we have 
sung the songs of the waiting church, with 
whom we have shared the joys and sorrows 
of the earthly life, with whom we have borne 
the burdens of Christian service and enjoyed 
the pure rewards of Christian sacrifice, with 
whom in many praises and many prayers we 
have anticipated the heavenly life. The hus- 
band and the wife will go there together; not 
to be married again, but to be glad that they 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 185 

were once married, and to be more glad that 
they were married to Christ by faith in bonds 
that are eternal. The brother and sister will 
go there together, carrying the memories of 
their pleasant home-life and rejoicing in the 
acquisition of their better and eternal home. 
Friends whose devotion was proved in the 
trials of the earth- life, who helped each other 
on through temptations to victory by faith in 
the precious Saviour, will go there together 
and will renew their friendship, which was for 
a time interrupted in expression but which 
lived in recollection. All these will recognize 
each other. It does not stand to reason that 
they should not. Their love and friendship 
were for this very thing. One of the most 
touching sentiments of this life is that which 
finds expression, when one friend is leaving 
another, in the words, " Meet me in heaven !" 
It is the spontaneous decision of the mind 
that the blessed meeting is to come. 

<z> 



1 86 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

And, moreover, before the bar of reason 
there is an appropriateness to this recog- 
nition. There is a longing for it, there is an 
anticipation of it, and there is also a fitness 
in it. I have heard it, many have heard it 
from their dying friends, that it was pleasant 
to think that they should soon be with one 
and another whom they named, who had 
been of their family circle here ; that they 
were soon to be reunited to those who had 
gone on before them to the blessed home. 
It is a consolation to every dying believer 
whose mind is clear that the joyful reunions 
are at hand. No traveler returning to his 
native land from long absence abroad antici- 
pates with keener delight the meeting with 
his family and friends than does the Chris- 
tian anticipate the restorations of heaven. 
He says, " I shall meet there those who have 
been separated from me, but for whom I 
have longed. Will not this one (whom he 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 187 

names) be the first to give me welcome to our 
happy home?" Sometimes faces of friends 
look out from the mystic realms with the 
old expression ; and sometimes voices, familiar 
and dear, are heard speaking the words of 
anticipatory joy. Poetry, the language of the 
heart, says, 

"She is not dead, the child of our affection, 

But gone unto that school 
Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 

And Christ himself doth rule. 
Not as a child shall we again behold her : 

For when with raptures wild 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child ; 
But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, 

Clothed with celestial grace : 
And beautiful with ail the soul's expansion 

Shall we behold her face." 

11 Cicero could say with approbation that 
even heaven would not be a place of happi- 
ness without some kindred, social spirit to 
share with him in the great truths there to 



i8S ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

be discovered." Si quis in Caelum ascendissei 
naiuramque mundi, etc. 

Most appropriate companions for each 
other are those who have been ransomed by 
the same blood, who have worked together 
for the redemption of the world, who have 
helped each other, by good service, toward 
the fruitions of the kingdom. It will be de- 
lightful to know the blessed angels, those 
elder children of our Father : it will be de- 
lightful to know Abraham, and Paul, and 
Luther, and the faithful confessors of every 
age ; but the keenest pleasure will be in the 
restored love of those who were our dearest 
earthly friends. Next to Christ will be our 
companions. Our closest sympathies will be 
with them. No soul will be a stranger in 
heaven ; there are no foreign parts in that 
world; all its inhabitants will dwell in har- 
monious intercourse, and eternity will be 
long enough for the formation of numberless 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HE A VEN. iSg 

friendships; yet it is fair to assume that 
those who prayed, and toiled, and suffered, 
and rejoiced together, who have common 
memories, who owe to one another the fact 
that they are in heaven, will have peculiar 
pleasure in each other's society. It does not, 
then, appear that our doctrine can be contro- 
verted on the basis of reason. The pre- 
sumption is in its favor. 

But, more than that, it is supported by the 
Scriptures. 

When the Lord shall come again those 
who are alive shall be caught up with those 
who are raised from the dead to meet him in 
the air. Right from earthly homes and pur- 
suits some are to be taken to the heavenly 
mansions, where they wall be with their 
friends who died before them. Such is the 
inspired teaching. In an Epistle the apostle 
tells his beloved Thessalonians that they are 
to be his hope and joy and crown of glorying 



j go ASPECTS OF HE A VEN. 

before our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming. 
He is to know them in that presence, and 
they are, as saved by his efforts, to be his 
eternal joy and crown of glory. Our Lord 
assures his friends, " I go to prepare a place 
for you, and I will receive you unto myself, 
that where I am there ye may be also." His 
prayer was, " I desire that where I am they 
also may be with me, that they may behold 
my glory." The representation of the Scrip- 
tures is that the redeemed will form a special 
community or commonwealth in heaven. 
They are to be the church of the first-born 
who are enrolled in heaven, a general assem- 
bly, a great multitude out of every nation, 
heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, a family 
sitting down with Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, and all the saints. They are dwellers 
in prepared mansions. They are partakers 
of a common felicity. They will share in 
satisfying fellowship. They will be employed 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HE A VEN. igi 

in common, and blessed, and ceaseless ser- 
vice. 

All this assumes and predicts the recog- 
nition of one another. The idea that death 
ends all acquaintance is utterly foreign to the 
Bible, as it is to reason and common sense. 
The saints will be like the angels ; and as the 
angels recognize each other so will the re- 
deemed. 

Let us who are going on together to that 
world joyfully accept this truth; thankfully 
believe that in the world of light and blessed- 
ness it will be a constant joy to meet those 
who have been dearly loved on earth. The 
faithful teacher will rejoice at the testimony 
from one and another who have been helped 
by him into the kingdom. Families will be 
happy in their reunion. The sorrows of 
this world, which shrouded with melancholy 
memories the homes of those who were ten- 
derly attached, which made the human path- 



IQ2 ASPECTS OF HE A VEN. 

way so long and dark and lonesome, which 
poured their notes of grief into the happy 
music of life, will be forever over : while un- 
measured ages of bliss shall prophecy eternal 
union and blessed companionship, into which 
shall come nevermore separation and sorrow 
and loneliness. 



" Will they meet us, cheer and greet us, 

Those we Ve loved, who ve gone before ? 

Shall we find them at the portals, 

Find our beautiful immortals, 

When we reach that radiant shore? 

" Hearts are broken for some token 
That they live and love us yet ! 
And we ask, Can those who left us, 
Of love's look and tone bereft us, 
Though in heaven, can they forget ? 

<( And we often, as days soften 

And comes out the evening star, 

Looking westward, sit and wonder 

Whether, when so far asunder, 

They still think how dear they are ! 



RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HE A VEN. igj 

"Past yon portals, our immortals, 

Those who walk with Him in white, 

Do they, 'mid their bliss, recall us ? 

Know they what events befall us? 
Will our coming wake delight ? 

"They w r ill meet us, cheer and greet us, 

Those we Ve loved, who 've gone before : 
We shall find them at the portals, 
Find our beautiful immortals, 
When we reach that radiant shore !" 
13 



194 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



XI. 

SUPERANGELIC LIFE. 

SCATTERED along in the sacred writ- 
ings are passages which indicate an 
exalted rank for the saints in the heav- 
enly life ; reminders to the church of its fu- 
ture glory ; calls to Christians to live pure 
and noble and self-sacrificing; lives. 

The vanity and insignificance and brevity 
of this life are set forth as fitted to influence 
them on the one hand, and the perpetuity and 
pleasures and the everlasting honors of the 
life to come are brought out in strong relief 
on the other hand, as inducements to renounce 
the world and to aspire to things above. 

The angels, as elder children of God, are 
represented as holding high places in the 



SUPERANGELIC LIFE. ipj 

heavenly world. They have been holy and 
loyal since their creation. They have stood 
faithful to the throne. Their pleasure has 
been to execute the will of their Creator. 
They have been swift to be his messengers. 
Their broad wings have swept through the 
skies in fearless fulfilment of duty. Their 
spears of light have flashed against every foe. 
Their stalwart forms have made the armies of 
heaven irresistible. They have loved God 
with a pure, warm love. All that he has 
done has won their admiration and their 
study. When the Son of God came to this 
world on his strange mission they watched 
what must have been to them the wonder of 
wonders : their songs burst forth over Beth- 
lehem ; their plaints mingled with the sor- 
rows of sad Gethsemane. When the greatest 
apostle asks the question, " Know ye not that 
we shall judge angels ?" he puts before us a 
strong affirmation of the superiority of re- 



iq6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

deemed men. He could hardly have ex- 
pressed the truth more strikingly if he had 
wished Christians to understand that thoy are 
destined to an exalted rank in the Kingdom 
of the Lord. The sentiment agrees with 
much else in the Scriptures. 

" The Lord's portion is his people," was 
an old way of stating it. Such phrases as 
" the perfection of beauty," " precious in my 
sight," " Israel my glory," " my jewels," and 
the like, foreshadowed in the old Scriptures 
those more tender and precious statements of 
the new Scriptures : " Joy shall be in heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth ;" " Bring forth 
the best robe and put it on him ;" " He that 
loveth me shall be loved of my Father ;" 
" The glory that thou hast given me I have 
given them ;" " Having his name and the 
name of his Father written on their fore- 
heads ;" " The first-born among many breth- 
ren ;" "The spirits of just men made per- 



SUPERANGELIC LIFE. igy 

feet ;" " Kings and priests unto God," and 
such like. 

When it is said that " we shall judge an- 
gels " we have something in the same vein, 
but concrete, striking, suggestive, bold. We 
know what their rank is, and if saints, the re- 
deemed, are to outrank them, a peculiar and 
great honor is to be awarded them. 

It cannot refer to individual superiority. 
The angels are of a stronger type than are 
men. They are a mighty race, they excel in 
strength, and they have been schooled in a 
long experience. In one night a single angel 
slew in the camp of the Assyrians one hun- 
dred and eighty-five thousand men. The 
hand of an angel is a hand of might, whether 
stretched out to destroy the foe or to bear up 
the friends of God. 

The angels have great intellectual attain- 
ment. They are w 7 ise in science, whether of 
the physical creation or of mind. They have 



iq8 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

made the things of God a study under the 
best conditions. They are summoned to con- 
ference with God himself. Their school has 
been the universe ; their teacher the great 
Creator. Not by one world have their studies 
been bounded ; they have drawn lessons from 
all worlds. 

The angels have also exalted moral per- 
fection. They have not been lowered by 
apostasy. Their keen minds have not been 
tarnished by sin. They have not felt the 
hateful mastery of lust and envy and sor- 
did passions. From strength to strength 
they have gone on in holy character. They 
are holy angels. They are dear to God. 
They are children of his power on whom he 
can look with complacency. They take a 
deep interest in all that interests God. They 
desire to look into the things of redemption. 
They thronged around Christ in invisible 
legions on all his earthly way and their 



SUPERANGELIC LIFE. igg 

lives were ever at his service. Gladly would 
they have humiliated his enemies and have 
borne him back on their triumphant chariots 
to heaven. 

And they are supremely happy. Their 
songs are full of joy. With unceasing glad- 
ness they behold the face of God continually. 
In these great natural and moral excellencies 
redeemed men cannot expect to emulate them. 
It will take time and experience and wide 
knowledge for the saints to stand where the 
angels now are. They are indeed to be made 
like unto the angels, but it will be as younger 
children are like elder ones who have had 
training and experience. Not in these re- 
spects can we judge angels. They have the 
start of all the saints in holy character, in in- 
tellectual strength, in exalted wisdom and 
bliss. When the Scriptures would speak of 
that which is great and excellent it is com- 
pared to the holy angels : profound wisdom 



200 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

is the wisdom of the angels ; choicest food 
is the food of angels ; sturdiest strength is 
the might of angels ; splendid beauty is the 
beauty of these elder sons of God. 

Redeemed men will rank the angels in 
the significant contrasts which their own ex- 
perience will supply. The angels have had 
a uniform life of obedience and progress. 
Commencing in love and loyalty to God, 
their lives have kept right on in holiness 
and in the happiness and wisdom which holi- 
ness gives. Heaven has been their home al- 
ways. They are used to its light and glory. 

But men who come to that world come 
to it as immigrants from a far different 
world. Those who go from this world, dark 
with sin, hideous with appalling crimes — the 
scene of their own transgressions, of their 
repentance and confession, of their struggles 
and falls ; from this world where the bright- 
est feahtre is a cross, the most precious 



SUPER ANGELIC LIFE. 201 

thing the blood of One who was slain for 
it, to that world, pure, full of light, with 
a glory that is faintly represented by the 
splendor of gems and the brilliance of noon, 
where there is nothing tarnished, with its 
throne of whiteness and its very pavement 
of glass and gold, with inhabitants white- 
robed, with music of which the sweetest 
we have heard is but dull foreshadow, with 
a life so grand that words fail to describe 
it, with occupations so noble that we have 
nothing to compare them with, with a pres- 
ence so sweet that only paradise is typical of 
it, with God there in the mysterious revelation 
of himself, so august, so glorious, so loving, 
making heaven where he is, supremely happy, 
and filling with happiness all to whom he re- 
veals himself — bear in their own experience 
such contrasts that no other beings can have 
the sensations which they will have nor 
know the peculiar joy and satisfaction from 



202 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

their bein^ there. There is a wonderful 
escape which no angel has ever known. Out 
of the peril of sin and out of the mutterings of 
wrath they have come. Out of sicknesses and 
pains and disappointments, out of trials for 
which there is no word, out of heart-break- 
ings, out of the jaws of hell, they have had 
deliverance. And in heaven it is deliverance. 
The gates of heaven are holy. Whoever 
passes within them is safe. It is the City 
of Refuge for those whom Satan has scented 
and tracked. It is the City of Peace for 
those who have known long campaigns of 
war. It is the City of Holiness for those who 
have known the miseries and the despair 
of sin. Perhaps it can be told what heav- 
en is to the angels ; but it can never be 
told what it will be to the saints. The Bible 
tells what it is not. It deals in negatives. The 
affirmatives cannot be put in words. All that 
can be said is that " Eve hath not seen, nor 



SUPERANGEL1C LIFE. 203 

ear heard, neither have entered into the heart 
of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for him." 

Angels cannot enter into the rapture 
which those will feel who have come out of 
this world, so dark, into that world of bright- 
ness. Having always lived there, and known 
no other state, they cannot prize it by reason 
of the ever-impressive contrasts which will 
repeat themselves to the saints. 

The one fact, that sin is past, and the 
warfare which sin produces, will give an ex- 
uberance of delight and a bounding sense of 
relief. The saints will walk forth as freed 
slaves. Every power will have new liberty. 

Then, there will be the reunions and the 
restorations of the saved. Old friends will 
rush into each other's arms there. Parents 
who were separated from their children will 
regain them. Up from the conflict of sin 
will come the scarred heroes; they will meet 



204 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

their old comrades and their old command- 
ers; the whole old history will start out 
into clear memory ; great praise will swell 
out from the restored ranks. Why, in this 
world, fellow-soldiers who have shared the 
burdens and the sanguinary struggles and 
the glories of hard campaigns fall on each 
other s necks, and weep tears of joy, at the 
reunions of armies. We cannot imagine the 
delight and transport of eternal restorations. 
The mother will fold the child in her loving 
embrace — perhaps a lost boy regained by her 
prayers in the love of Christ. The teacher 
will renew acquaintance with the scholar who 
was carried in her solicitude and intercession. 
Brothers and sisters, old friends of every de- 
gree, will have fellowship again. The angels 
will stand back in deference to these demon- 
strations and to all that is so peculiar in the 
contrasts of those who have known the woe 
of sin and the forgiveness and joy and satis- 



SUPERANGELIC LIFE. 203 

faction of redemption. Redeemed men will 
rank the angels by their nearness to the Re- 
deemer. The symbolic revelation which God 
makes of himself, as the Lamb slain in the 
midst of the throne, shows us that Redemp- 
tion is the chief work of God; and also that 
he wishes to be known as One sacrificing 
himself to save his creation. God puts less 
value on power than he puts on love. God 
ranks almightiness lower than he ranks 
helpfulness. God would prefer to redeem a 
world rather than to create a world. 

The throne expresses the idea of sov- 
ereignty. But the throne of heaven in its cen- 
tral idea keeps ever prominent the fact that 
he who holds it is a Saviour. The greatest 
thought of the universe, then, is that sinners 
of this world are saved by the Maker of the 
universe. They stand nearest to him. They 
are the most to him and they render the 
most to him. They most glorify him be- 



206 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

cause they are witnesses to the success and 
the blessedness of Redemption. Angels have 
never been redeemed. They can be grateful 
for the joy they have always had, but they 
cannot be grateful for being lifted out of the 
ignominy of sin and for being delivered from 
the peril of hell. They can praise their 
Creator with sincerity; but they cannot know 
the thrill of rescue from perdition. They 
can exalt great perfections of their King; but 
they cannot testify to his greatest attribute. 

There is a striking passage in the four- 
teenth chapter of Revelation where a new 
song sung before the throne is spoken of, and 
it is said that no one could learn that song 
but those who were redeemed from the earth. 
There are many songs there; old songs that 
have rung out since the creations began, 
songs rich with the rhythm and melody of 
celestial music, songs that have celebrated 
great works of God and magnificent adorn- 



SUPERANGELIC LIFE. 207 

ment of his Kingdom, old songs that have 
set his glories high and in which all the 
angels have worshipped him. But this new 
song, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain : 
for thou hast redeemed us to God by thy 
blood out of every kindred and tongue and 
people and nation, " is a song which only the 
saved can sing. Full of tenderness and 
pathos, thrilling in every note with the joy 
and rapture of escape and of freedom, it falls 
in subdued cadence on the air of heaven ; 
and every angel stands still to listen, en- 
tranced, while those who bear the image of 
the Lamb celebrate his cross and his blood, 
by which heaven was opened to them. 

They were closely united to him in this 
world, while they bore his name and trusted 
in him and gained victory through him. He 
has always been supremely dear to his fol- 
lowers. They have clung to him in life and 
in death. 



208 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

He is to be their Brother always : King 
of angels, but Brother and King of saints. 
These will stand nearest to him. They will 
love most because they have been forgiven 
most. They are related to Christ by divine 
blood, and are sons of God; and He will dwell 
among them. They will stand before all an- 
gels, and all the universe, a blood-bought 
and an innumerable company, the grateful 
witnesses of what has been accomplished by 
the greatest work of God. And as honors 
come to Christ, testimonials and tributes and 
trophies from all worlds, in acknowledgment 
of his great self-sacrifice which set the bright- 
est gem in his imperial crown, the saints will 
give supreme evidence and emphasis to the 
greatness of the work. 

They who are followers of Christ now are 
to contribute something, as it may be, to the 
dignity and greatness of the future life. Shall 
they for this congratulate themselves before- 



SUPER ANGELIC LIFE. 209 

hand ? Or, rather, shall they be admonished 
to walk worthy of their calling: to bear in 
mind what they are destined unto, to main- 
tain the dignity and self-respect of sons of 
God, to permit the anticipation of coming 
honors to chasten their sentiments and to 
refine their characters and to give a glow to 
their faces and their songs, and to cause that 
the life which is now rapidly passing shall be 
a constant preparation for a life that is to be 
superangelic ? 



2io ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 



XII. 

THE REVELATION OF GOD BY THE 
REDEEMED TO OTHER WORLDS. 

nr^HE Church has a great work, as a wit- 
nessing body, in this world. It has a 
commission to set forth great truths, 
great foundation principles, great revelations 
of God, great and mighty issues, so that ob- 
serving men may be rightly impressed, so 
that, as far as possible, the populations may 
be won to righteousness, so that Christ's 
work, the greatest work of God, which most 
signalizes his administration and most mani- 
fests his character, may be made effective. 
And this is vastly important. It cannot be 
over-rated. 

It has also another testimony to give : out- 



THE REVELATION OF GOD. 211 

side of this world, in other spheres of knowl- 
edge and influence, among beings of differ- 
ent order and different experience, when it 
has passed out of the range of time into the 
realm of immortality. 

The affairs that do most concern us are 
affairs of intense interest to other beings, in 
other worlds. We have repeated statements 
in the Scriptures of the attention which the 
angels give to the matter of our redemption. 
From the inception of Christ's work till its 
close they followed every step of it with the 
absorbing anxiety of those who were in full 
sympathy with him and who wanted to under- 
stand that which was so full of wonder for 
them. And since he has gone up to his 
throne again they have been ministering 
spirits for them who shall be heirs of sal- 
vation. The whole history of redemption, 
running through the ages, involving the 
revolutions of nations, the changes in the 



212 ASPECTS OF HE A VEN. 

world's progress, the biographies of individ- 
uals, and eventuating in the greatest glory 
that can come to the throne of God, is the 
subject of their constant study and of their 
growing admiration. And this which so 
concerns them will equally affect the in- 
habitants of other estates of God's vast 
dominion. The greatest theme of their 
thought is God himself; and that which 
throws light on him, which illustrates his 
attributes and his character, is that which 
they will be the most eager to look into. 

Each world that God has made has its 
own evidence to give to him. Something 
new in design or degree will be offered by 
each one. The burning sun of our system, 
the central furnace of heat and the glowing 
focus of light for the worlds that revolve 
around it, has something grand to offer. Sat- 
urn, eleven hundred times larger than our 
earth, encircled by two illuminated rings five 



THE RE VELA TION OF GOD. 213 

thousand miles apart, which light every night 
with a peculiar glory, has other, but not in- 
ferior, evidence to give. On every orb the 
Creator has stored the volumes of his wisdom 
for the study of his creatures. 

This world is small in bulk, its rank is 
low, among the divine creations. But it has 
more to offer in illustration of God than 
many another world of larger size and blaz- 
ing with a greater glory. Granted that 
other worlds are grander, of more wonderful 
structure, of richer materials ; that they have 
a higher order of inhabitants, a vaster learn- 
ing, a more finished science, greater beauty 
on their landscapes, greater variety in their 
productions, greater satisfaction in their his- 
tory : still there is probably no other world 
that has such a contribution to give to all 
worlds as our own globe. Its bulk is small 
but its testimony is immense. Its history is 
brief but what wonders have been enacted on it! 



2i 4 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

That which has here been done is, in the 
Scriptural terms, a revelation of " the manifold 
wisdom of God." The redemption by the 
Lord Jesus Christ is not only the greatest of 
all divine works but it is that in which the 
most varied wisdom is evinced. Undoubted- 
ly there is sublime wisdom in the work of 
creation with all its manifold developments 
and adjustments, so that these countless orbs 
move in harmony, so that the economy of 
each one is adapted to its peculiar condi- 
tions. Life here is a very different thing 
from life on Mercury or on Jupiter. But 
this wisdom is wisdom in the construction 
of mechanism : the other is wisdom in the 
control of mind, and in the control of mind to 
save it. A great problem was thrust on the 
divine solution by the fact of human sinful- 
ness. Left to itself, to work out its natural 
results, the only issue would be death. The 
race would lie in ruin, its possibilities spoiled, 



THE RE VELA TION OE GOD. 21 j 

its creation worse than a failure. That, God 
could not suffer. The divine wisdom must 
disclose some method by which the calamity 
should be arrested and the divine honor 
should be upheld. To us it seems a simple 
thing ; it is the " old, old, story " with which 
we are all familiar, our very familiarity with 
it reducing its greatness. But only divine 
wisdom, profoundly exercised, could secure 
such sublime ends by such simple means. 
The plan is the admiration of angels and 
the wonder of worlds. Who could have 
thought of such a plan : of the self-sacrifice 
of the Son of God for sinners, in the humilia- 
tion and death of Christ for sinners, in the 
agencies of the cross and of the Spirit's 
power and of divine truth and divine provi- 
dence, in successive dispensations through 
the growing history of the world, by which 
the kingdom of God is advanced and made 
victorious ? 



216 ASPECTS OF HEA VEiW 

We do not know what may be going on 
in the history of the planet that flames on the 
eastern sky in our early evenings, or on the 
fixed star that sentries the outposts of the 
visible creation. But we believe that nothing 
so great can be involved in their history as 
that which is getting solution under our eyes 
in the conversion and sanctification of re- 
deemed souls and the conquests of Christ's 
kingdom. Nothing there can attract angelic 
thought like the transactions here. Nothing 
there can demonstrate the divine wisdom like 
this history which we ourselves are living and 
which is to be written out to its immortal is- 
sues. There is nothing else like the salvation 
of souls from eternal shame to eternal glory. 
And to achieve this is the crowning work 
of divine wisdom. Heaven contributed from 
its throne to secure it. Heaven, throughout 
all its intelligences, is watching eagerly and 
absorbingly the ongoing of the supernatural 



THE RE VELA TION OF GOD. 217 

dispensation. St. Paul calls it the manifold 
wisdom of God. To those who look at it 
from other spheres it is greatly diversified, 
as the glories of the sunset vary in the chang- 
ing pomp and splendor of lighted clouds. 
Each age, each step of progress, each new 
advance of the kingdom, reveals its own pe- 
culiar glory. 

Now, this glorious wisdom of God is of 
interest to principalities and powers in heav- 
enly worlds. They are of superior order ; 
and because they are wise and holy, be- 
cause they look on God as he is and esti- 
mate sin and holiness aright, their profound 
attention has been attracted to the strange 
facts which are transpiring on this world. 
St. Paul, in one place, enumerates them 
as angels, principalities, powers : also, all 
principality and power and might and do- 
minion ; and in another place, as thrones, 
or dominions, or principalities, or powers. 



2iS ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

St. Peter speaks of angels and authorities 
and powers. These terms characterize ex- 
alted spiritual beings in heavenly worlds. 
How many there are, from how many 
worlds they are looking to this world for 
light, we cannot know. Their shining forms 
have been here. They congregated around 
Bethlehem when their King lay in its 
lowly manger. They filled the mountains 
with their praises when they announced to 
the shepherds his advent. They ministered 
to him in the weakness that followed his 
fast and his temptation. They strengthened 
him in the agony of Gethsemane. They 
watched as sentinels at his tomb. They are 
ministering spirits now to all the children of 
God. From beginning to end this whole 
economy of the redemption of the world is 
of tenderest and intensest interest to them. 

They have their own worlds to think of ; 
they can see the dories of their Creator in 



THE REVELATION OF GOD. 219 

the magnificence and beauty which surround 
their habitations ; but there has been the 
ongoing of a work in this world- to which 
nothing else can be compared and which 
has arrested their attention. The thought 
of the universe has been concentrated on 
the miracle of this world. A new revela- 
tion of God has been made here; the reve- 
lation of him as a merciful Saviour, under- 
taking in person to save sinners, under- 
taking by personal exile and humiliation and 
pain to do it. And the princes and powers 
and dominions of other worlds have sought 
to understand it. The knowledge of our re- 
demption is not confined to the limits of this 
little planet. It has gone abroad. It is the 
theme of conversation and the subject of 
study far and wide. This world is small, 
but the transaction on it is great. No other 
world has witnessed the like. As a great po- 
litical or military or scientific event will fix 



220 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN, 

the eye of the world and the thought of all 
nations upon it for the time, so the humilia- 
tion and the sacrifice of the Son of God have 
challenged and fixed the attention of heav- 
enly worlds. 

One aspect of heaven is found in this: 
that the full knowledge of the redemptive 
work is to be made known by the redeemed in 
other worlds. Some knowledge of it has gone 
forth. It is the theme of thought and of talk 
already, far and wide, among the creations of 
God. So far it is not altogether understood. 
There are desires to look into it. It is yet an 
unfinished work. But its history is progress- 
ing. From age to age, through manifold revo- 
lutions, through overthrows and strange up- 
buildings, it is to go on. We shall not see the 
end of it, nor will our children. But, in 
the future which no human eye can scan, this 
monumental history of redemption is to stand 
before the gaze of the worlds. The voice that 



THE RE VELA TION OF GOD. 221 

on Calvary said, " It is finished," will again 
pronounce the full undertaking finished. 

Then that which has been achieved by it 
is to be made known by the redeemed them- 
selves. The Church is to be the instructress 
of principalities and powers and dominions in 
the heavenly spheres. After having testified 
here, by holy living, by martyr deaths, by 
song and prayer and Christian character, it 
is to testify more widely by personal witness 
to what Christ has achieved for his saints. 
The accumulations of personal experience 
now are to swell that volume of testimony 
which will be published abroad to the worlds. 
Our witness, so far as we are faithful to our 
Lord, will go into that mass of evidence. We 
shall belong to the " great cloud of witnesses." 
The question to be answered will be this : 
"What did the Lord of Glory accomplish 
when he left his throne and humbled him- 
self to the rank of humanity and to the shame 



222 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

of the cross ?" His redeemed Church will give 
the answer. Adam will say, Noah will re- 
ply, Abraham will repeat the facts of his ex- 
perience, Moses will tell of the wonders which 
he knew, David and Isaiah and the holy 
prophets will publish that which inspired 
their songs and their predictions, St. John 
will tell of his love for One who first loved 
him, St. Peter will tell how he was found 
unto praise and honor and glory at the ap- 
pearing of Jesus Christ. Martyrs will tell 
what joy they had in giving their lives for 
One who gave his precious life for them ; and 
all the multitude among whom they will be, 
whose sins were washed away and whose life 
was bought by the blood of the Lamb, will 
repeat what they have known in their indi- 
vidual experience. Every trial through which 
Christians have been safely brought will swell 
the testimony to the work of Christ. Every 
victory which they have gained by his might 



THE RE VELA TION OF GOD. 223 

over sin, over temptation, over sorrow, over 
opposition, will be recounted to his glory. 
All will want to tell what Christ has done 
for them, The speechless saints on this side 
will gain their voices over there. The timid 
disciples will get courage in the light of the 
throne. They who hold back now will be 
volunteering then. Having tasted the bliss 
of heaven they will want to honor him who 
gained it for them. Would to God that they 
could anticipate it enough to be open- 
mouthed disciples now \ 

Think what the Church will offer to the 
worlds ! Think what sacredness this world 
will get because the cross of Christ stands 
upon it ! Delegations may come to it from 
far-off worlds, as wise men from old lands in 
the east and shepherds from the mountains 
came to Bethlehem. One inquiry will be 
foremost among all great, thoughtful minds 
throughout the skies, and the redeemed 



224 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

Church will answer it. The answer, we may 
be assured, w r ill be satisfactory. This redemp- 
tion of our Lord is no uncertain experiment. 
Some of us, alas ! may not have part in it. 
But our rejection cannot dim its glory. Prin- 
cipalities and dominions will have their won- 
der satisfied. 

There have been great histories of men 
renowned, of peoples who have marched on 
the roads of greatness and power and have 
left the marks of their genius and sover- 
eignty on all the world. But there has 
been and there can be no other history 
like the fulfilled history of redemption. It 
will be the history of a world saved by 
the self-sacrifice of God. The lost out of 
its populations will be forgotten in the 
glories of the saved, in the number of them 
and in the testimony of them. 

So it is that the Church is a communion 
which rises far above the limits of time and 



THE RE VELA TION OF GOD. 223 

the histories of humanity into the reaches of 
eternity. It is a commission charged with 
the treasures of divine operations and the 
revelations of divine glory not merely ter- 
restrial but cosmical. The Christian church 
is the bond which links earth and the heav- 
enly spheres. 

To some of us who read it may be given 
to carry to them the knowledge which the 
worlds are waiting for. Heaven is not a 
place of luxurious ease and perpetual praise, 
but it is the center of services from which the 
redeemed go forth to carry knowledge and 
to enable principalities and powers to un- 
derstand the story of Christ, which is the 
history of God, inasmuch as it includes 
the fullest and divinest revelation of what 
he is. 

May we be fitted for the blessed service! 



15 



226 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 



XIII. 

THE MAKING OF HEA VEN. 

THREE things, it is truly said, make 
Heaven : to be where Christ is; to be 
with him there ; to behold his glory 
there. Christ's desire that all those who 
truly love and serve him shall have this 
heavenly experience makes it certain for 
them, for he has power to give eternal life 
to as many as the Father has given him. It 
is the reward of his sacrifice that his real fol- 
lowers shall dwell in his palaces. His desire 
is his royal purpose, expressed in the terms 
of mediatorial intercession, but carrying au- 
thority with it; the authority of a king in his 
own right and the authority of privilege un- 
der the covenant of redemption. 



THE MAKING OF HE A VEN. 227 

The saved in heaven bear a peculiar rela- 
tion to their Redeemer. Not only is his love 
very great for them, but they are both wit- 
nesses and trophies of his greatest work. 
How numerous they may be, compared with 
those loyal angels who from of old have 
stood before the throne and have been his 
ministers in the vast and varied affairs of 
his administration, we cannot now determine. 
But they will form a great company. They 
will add vastly to the population of heaven. 
The human colony in the heavenly metropo- 
lis will eventually become innumerable. It is 
great now, counting back through the thou- 
sands of years during which the emigrants 
have worn so many pathways from the earth 
to the skies. But this is only its beginning. 
The race is only in its infancy : the con- 
quests of Christ have only begun. From the 
feeble minority the believers in Christ may 
become the overwhelming majority of the 



228 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

world's population; and by and by, for long 
durations of time, the whole race, multitudi- 
nous and loyal, will contribute its successive 
generations to that augmented colony. And 
every one who arrives there will carry his 
personal testimony, as he will be a personal 
trophy, to the wonderful salvation which he 
has himself received through the work of 
Christ. Possibly we put but little honor on 
this work now. Many scornfully reject it. 
Many affect a haughty indifference to it. 
Many hold it lightly as compared with study 
or business or ambitious aims. Even those 
who think they prize it only half apprehend 
it and live far below its sublime claims. But 
when, far on, Christ shall become satisfied 
and heaven shall be full of the victorious 
saints, when the innumerable kings and 
priests of those royal abodes shall bring their 
revenues of love and their offerings of grati- 
tude to him, and when their voices shall be 



THE MAKING OF HEA VEN. 229 

like mighty thunderings and the sound of 
many waters breaking on all the ocean 
shores, there will be no half-hearted loyalty 
toward the Redeemer. Those who are fortu- 
nate enough to be there to see it will find 
that the redemptive work of Christ is the 
foremost theme of heaven and the eternal 
wonder of all its inhabitants. 

Christ is a person and has a personal 
presence. He came down from heaven : he 
ascended to heaven. He says, " In my Fa- 
ther's house are many mansions. I go to pre- 
pare a place for you. I will receive you unto 
myself, that where I am there ye may be 
also." We are not to think of the omnipres- 
ent Christ as diffused throughout space. We 
are not to think of heaven as anywhere, but 
as a definite place, as a realm with distinct 
boundaries, as a veritable city of God. The 
Bible has not located it for us. Science may 
not be able to do so. Science may define a 



2jo ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

central place among the stars, around which 
worlds and systems of worlds harmoniously 
revolve, as though there might be the metrop- 
olis of the universe, around which the con- 
stellations keep their reverential march and 
to which all material orbs send their tributes 
of obedience, as States send their representa- 
tives to the capital and outlying provinces 
contribute to the central authority. But it 
is somewhere, beyond the scope of human 
vision but within the scope of divine thought; 
where God is in His essential glory, where 
Christ sits on his throne, where he went 
from the earth when a cloud received and 
hid hirn from the disciples' sight, where the 
old patriarchs sit down together, where the 
pious dead live on, and from which, in dying, 
sweet visions and voices come from the saints. 
It is where our friends who have fallen asleep 
went when they left us, and now are; where 
we shall go when a few more trials shall have 



THE MAKING OF HE A VEN. 231 

been endured and a little more labor shall 
have been wrought on the world. It is where 
the triumphant church will rest when its bat- 
tles shall have been fought, the capital in 
which they will be welcomed and crowned. 
There Christ dwells. There his empty throne 
waited, when for thirty-three years he was 
solving the problem of redemption on this 
globe. To it he was received back with a 
welcome such as no other great conqueror 
ever had. And it is heaven because He is 
there. That is the making of it. He is its 
exceeding glory. A great honor came to 
him for his manifestation of GOD in the 
humiliation, and shame, and suffering and 
sacrifice of his redemptive work. To be 
w r here he is a great honor. To be where 
worthy kings and princes are, where the 
princes and kings of thought and humanity 
dwell, gives dignity and pleasure to life. The 
choice places are made so by the presence of 



232 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

the beloved and renowned. Even when they 
have gone their memory sanctifies the hal- 
lowed spots. Here, we say, they, the holy 
and the trusted, who had all our hearts could 
give, lived, and thought, and suffered; here 
they walked and left their footsteps; here 
the air vibrated with the tones of their 
sweet voices; here they looked on sky and 
landscape, and therefore it is holy ground. 
Heaven is holy and precious because it is 
where Christ is. 

In this world Christ is with his friends. 
He promises that where even two or three 
are met in his name he will be with them ; 
that where his servants go forth to bear his 
gospel into all the world he will be with 
them unto the end. He is with them in the 
ordinances of his house, taking delight in 
their united worship and sending the Spirit 
to give light and comfort; in the reading and 
teaching of his word through which they are 



THE MAKING OF HEA VEN. 233 

sanctified ; in the observance of the Lord s 
Supper, where, in symbol, they receive his 
body and his blood. So intimately is he 
with them in the Supper that some Chris- 
tians have taught that the simple emblems 
become his real body and blood, sacred to 
the touch and taste; an error which springs 
from too literal interpretation of his words. 

In the heavenly world his friends are to 
be with him. It is not enough to be where he 
is : those who do not love him might be where 
he is. Many were where he was who had no 
part with him, who bitterly rejected, him. 
Only those who love him can really be with 
kt77z. A blind man, it is said in illustration, 
may be where the light is, but he is not with 
the light; it gives him no comfort, no joy, no 
guidance, no sight of objects of beauty and 
worth. 

I was once at beautiful Ischl, in the am- 
phitheater of the Tyrolean Alps, and walk- 



234 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN, 

ing along its highways strolled into the choice 
grounds of a villa, where the velvety turf and 
the rich parterres and all the environs indi- 
cated an ownership of wealth and luxury, 
when a soldier respectfully beckoned me 
aw r ay. He was a guard before the summer 
residence of the Emperor of Austria, who, 
with his family, was within those sacred 
walls. I was where they were, in Ischl, un- 
der the same fair skies, within the same pano- 
rama of grand mountains which engirdled us 
like a wall lifted to the sky, breathing the 
same saline air of that imperial sanitarium. 
But I was an alien and a stranger, and the 
dwellers spoke in a tongue that was un- 
known to me, and I could not enter within 
the charmed circle of that divinity that 
hedges round a king. 

His followers will be with Christ as his 
friends and companions, honored, trusted, 
beloved. This implies intimate union and 



THE MAKING OF HE A VEN. 235 

communion. They shall see his face, and his 
name shall be on their foreheads : and he 
shall dwell with them, and they shall be his 
people. This is the crowning of the Chris- 
tian's life. Christ will not be satisfied till all 
who have believed in him are with him where 
he is. He must have all who are his with 
him. Only that is the making of heaven. 

He will be with them in their battles and 
trials; he will go with them into every hard 
conflict, into every difficult work, into every 
sore suffering. They shall know that a di- 
vine Hand is leading them on, that an eye 
which never sleeps is watchful of them. But 
when the trial is over, when the crash and 
roar of battle have died away, they shall be 
with him, in the royal abode itself, near the 
throne, themselves enthroned, dwelling for- 
ever in confidence and co-heirship with him! 
It is not enough that they shall be where he 
is ; thev must be with him there. 



236 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

Death is but a door-keeper. He flings 
back on its silver hinges the doors of a 
Paradise which is the inheritance of the 
saints. They walk in, with no sentinel to 
bar their passage or to beckon them away, 
where their Lord, their Redeemer, dwells. 
That will be their Home forever. Of what 
our Lord desired for those who were given 
to him of the Father, Luther said, "We 
should let this utterance be our soul's pil- 
low and bed of down, and with joyful heart 
resort thereunto when the sweet hour of 
rest is at hand." It should be more. It 
should be our inspiration in the whole mor- 
tal experience. It should make life one per- 
petual home-stretch. It should make trivial 
all gains, all honors, all ambitions that are 
only worldly. It should lift over the seas on 
which we sail the light-houses and the towers 
of a better country. It should illumine the 
end of our pilgrimage with a light that 



THE MAKING OF HE A VEN. 237 

streams up the skies brighter than any au- 
rora. 

The future, final gloiy of Christ is some- 
thing which we cannot yet understand : it 
is the making of heaven. We know what 
glory is here. Men like it; they strive for it; 
they sacrifice everything else for it. But 
the glory which Christ is to have is another 
thing. It is grounded in goodness : it is 
lighted with love. He had glory with the 
Father before the world was, as he tells us. 
That was his glory as Almighty, as Creator, 
as the Perfect One. But we learn that there 
is another, different, exceeding glory, which 
is to come to him in the commemoration of 
his redemptive work. The drift of the Bible 
is to one end — the final triumph of Christ. 
Sometimes it looks to us as though his work 
were vain, as though it were too expensive 
for the results, as when a great campaign 
ends in disaster. But this is a limited, tempo- 



238 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

rary view : it takes in one epoch, it includes 
only one chapter. This work is a whole 
volume : it embraces all epochs, it is to end 
in victory. By and by Christ is to come 
again ; there will be the Second Advent. 
But he will come, not as Mediator, but as 
Judge. He will sit on his throne, and before 
him will be gathered all nations. The judg- 
ment of the world will be rendered. Then 
Christ will reign. The last voice in history 
will be a voice of triumph. When the last 
word shall be written, and the volume of 
Time shall be closed forever, that last word 
shall be Christ regnant. Everything sweeps 
irresistibly to that. The world's great over- 
throws are preparing the way for that. No 
Nero can stop it. No Buddha can stand in 
its way. No infidel blasphemer can put it 
back. No diplomacy can change the deter- 
mined result. No combinations can arrest 
the supreme will of the Almighty. Over 



THE MAKING OF HE A VEX. 239 

thrones and those who sit on them, over phi- 
losophies and sciences and affairs, over great 
paganisms and greater civilizations, the cause 
and kingdom of our Lord move resistlessly 
to their issue. When the judgment of the 
world shall come it will be found that there 
has been no mistake, except on the part of 
those who have opposed or rejected Christ. 
He shall reign. 

We cannot picture the scene of the tri- 
umph in heaven. There have been great 
triumphs here, when capitals have opened 
their gates to victorious armies and the pop- 
ulations have joined in the splendid festivi- 
ties. They are but the faint mimic of the 
heavenly reality. When Christ and all the 
innumerable host who have been saved by 
him from all the nations, in all the ages, shall 
unite in the final triumph it will be the con- 
summate glory. To see it is to partake of 
it. They who behold it will be sharers in it. 



240 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

" The glory which thou hast given me I have 
given unto them." Strange as it may be, 
strange as all this work of our redemption is 
throughout, Christ will share all the glory of 
it with those whom he saves. Of small mo- 
ment may we hold this world. Lightly may 
we esteem all that we enjoy and all that we 
suffer. " For the sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory that shall be revealed to us-ward." 
That glory, then, is to be revealed to us. In 
the wonder of that revelation will be the felic- 
ity and the making of heaven. Christ will 
not be satisfied, his strong desire will not be 
fulfilled, till those who are with him where he 
is shall behold his glory, which is to follow 
and crown and forever celebrate his redemp- 
tion of mankind. 

Are we all to be there ? 

Are we to be with Christ? 

Are our eyes to behold his glory ? 



A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 241 



XIV. 

A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 

HAVE we not wondered what heaven is; 
what is visible and prominent there; 
what are the occupations of those 
who dwell there; what is the service and 
what is the life in that world of glory; what 
is the revelation to those who are permitted 
to enter it? 

To the last of the prophets there was 
given the vision of that which we would all 
like to see. Before his sight a Door was 
opened in heaven and the wonders of the 
place were revealed in solemn and significant 
symbolism. They were revealed for the in- 
struction and the impression of Gods chil- 
dren on the earth throughout the Christian 

16 " 



242 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

ages; to draw us toward that world and into 
fitness for its transcendent scenes and ser- 
vice. 

The first thing that met the gaze of the 
seer was a Throne set in heaven. That was 
the first commanding object, central, radiant, 
imposing. It stood for regality, for supreme 
sovereignty. It was the throne of heavens 
King. From that went control, rulership, 
command of the universe. Changes there 
might be — creation of new worlds; destruc- 
tion of old worlds — but that royal seat would 
stand, unchanged, unchallenged. 

And there was One sitting upon the 
throne. That was GOD. No description is 
given of him. No human language could 
describe him. He cannot be defined nor 
set forth in any terms that we can use. No 
human eye could look upon him; no pencil 
could delineate him. He is the infinite One: 
beyond our thought; beyond any expression 



A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 243 

by word or by art There was One on the 
throne: nameless, infinite, incomprehensible, 
glorious; a Being of Almighty power, of 
transcendent wisdom. The appearance of 
him who sat on the throne was like the 
luminousness and color of a jasper stone and 
a sardius : the jasper transparent and varied 
in color, the sardius red like blood; both 
suggesting the scarlet-purple robes of roy- 
alty : suggesting them, but defining and de- 
scribing nothing that we can fix upon or 
form an image of; suggesting majesty and 
might, imperial authority and power. So 
much the apostle saw, but he u saw no si- 
militude." Hidden in glory unapproachable, 
shrouded by light too dazzling for mortal 
sight, was He who sat in ineffable splendor 
upon that mystic throne! 

And there was a rainbow round about 
the throne, like an emerald to look upon. 
That image of peace and mercy, in which 



244 ASPECTS OF HEA VEN. 

the predominating tint was green, arched the 
throne and symbolized the order and calm 
and moral beauty which the monarch would 
evoke when the storm and turbulence of 
passionate natures should pass away, as on 
the retreating forces of tempests which have 
raged in din and havoc the "colors of the 
showery arch" are painted on the background 
of a cloud. It set forth the veracity of God, 
who hung the bow in the cloud as the sign 
of his perpetual covenant that never again 
should the earth be destroyed by overwhelm- 
ing waters. It emblemized the grace which 
antagonizes sin and makes it possible for a 
world to be redeemed from the stormy vio- 
lences and passions of a universal revolt 
The bow arched the throne as in benediction 
upon it. 

Round about the throne were four and 
twenty thrones; and upon the thrones four 
and twenty elders sitting, arrayed in white 



A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 243 

garments; and on their heads crowns of 
gold. These were the representative kings 
and priests unto God, representatives of the 
old dispensation and of the new dispensa- 
tion, the two departments of the one church 
of God, in one of which were the twelve 
tribes of Israel and in the other the twelve 
apostles of our Lord. Each elder sat upon 
a brilliant throne, crowned with a crown of 
gold. They have a kingly character. They 
represent the exaltation of saints. It would 
seem that no glory is too great to be be- 
stowed upon men who are redeemed. They 
are joint-heirs with Christ. They sit on 
thrones. This is not for their sake: it is for 
the sake of their Redeemer. They are hon- 
ored that so they may honor him. His re- 
demptive work was the admiration of heaven. 
It absorbed the attention of all peopled 
worlds. The angels desired to look into 
these things. For it Christ must receive su- 



246 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

perlative glory. Heaven could not do too 
much for him. His return to his vacant 
throne was a triumph. His continued life in 
heaven must be crowded with new glories. 
So those who come up from his redeemed 
world are welcomed, for his sake, to seats of 
kingship, and they reign with him. Their 
ascription, as voicing the universal church, 
all saved souls, is " Thou wast slain, and didst 
purchase unto God with thy blood men of 
every tribe, and tongue, and people, and 
nation, and madest them to be unto our God 
a kingdom and priests." They represent the 
triumphant church. They are crowned and 
throned. Weary was the warfare of the mili- 
tant church. Century after century, in con- 
flict with the forces of sin and Satan the 
followers of Christ urged their scanty con- 
quests until sometimes it seemed as though 
they would never succeed, reverses following 
victories, whole bodies apostatizing, and 



A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 247 

darker, denser night succeeding the day! 
Peoples blessed with privilege, enjoying the 
light of noon, rejected the offers of the gos- 
pel, satisfied with their state and life of sin. 
But this could not last forever. Immanuel 
must be victor. The world must become 
loyal. The apostate state must be followed 
by long ages of peace and glory in which 
Christ would be supreme. So these crowned 
and enthroned elders represent the victorious 
church. They bring the tributes of a ran- 
somed world to the central throne and sur- 
round it with their united adoration. 

And out of the throne proceed lightnings, 
and voices, and thunders. These represent 
power, and majesty, and supremacy. 

And there were seven lamps of fire burn- 
ing before the throne, which are the seven 
spirits of God. When the Holy Spirit came 
down on the day of Pentecost in the sound 
as of a rushing mighty wind, tongues like as of 



248 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

fire, parting asunder, sat on the head of each 
apostle. The ever-burning lamps of fire rep- 
resent the seven-fold, or perfect, dispensation 
of the Spirit. His influence flames on amid 
disturbing voices, amid the tumult of human 
passion, the loud clamor of sin and the cries 
and thunders of apostasy. He is in the world 
a force of calmness and control. Convulsions 
are abroad. Nations are hurled against na- 
tions in the shock and thunder of war. Great 
empires rise and fall, and great is the fall of 
them. With infinite tranquillity the Spirit, as 
of old, moves on the face of the waters and 
brings order out of chaos. He is present in 
all places, amid all disturbances, with light 
that beams steadily to lighten the people, 
with flames of fire to consume all opposition, 
with a divine influence that is pervasive and 
corrective and saving. 

And before the throne, as it were a glassy 
sea, like unto crystal; and in the midst of the 



A DOOR OPENED IN HE A VEN. 249 

throne, and round about the throne, were four 
living creatures full of eyes before and be- 
hind. And the four living creatures, having 
each of them six wings, are full of eyes 
round about and within. These living beings 
supported the throne; it rested upon them, 
as upon power, intelligence, vigilance, ener- 
gy, which these represent. The divine gov- 
ernment is a government of power : noth- 
ing can stand against it ; it is supreme in 
this world; in all worlds. It is a govern- 
ment of intelligence. All things are naked 
and open to the eyes of Him with whom we 
have to do. It is a government of vigilance : 
observant of every part, of every subject, of 
every condition, of all results. It is a gov- 
ernment of tireless energy. It moves forward 
to the full execution of its plans with the re- 
lentlessness of fate and the force of omnip- 
otence. 

And as these living beings were full of 



250 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

eyes before and behind, round about and 
within, so is the divine providence all- 
observing and ever-watchful, from which 
nothing can be concealed and nothing es- 
cape. This government is of One who is 
omniscient. The vast interests of a world, of 
all the worlds, of our race, of the beings un- 
numbered and unknown by us, are all care- 
fully, wisely, unremittingly administered by 
Him who rules with impartial hand. 

And they have no rest day and night, 
saying, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, 
the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who 
is to come." The representatives of the divine 
government, in creation, in providence, in 
grace, continually, without rest, bring their 
greatness to Him who sitteth on the throne. 
Whatever men may do, whatever revolting 
angels may do, all that the Creator does, 
w r hether in the production of worlds and 
beings by His imperial will, or in the wide 



A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 2ji 

and wise supervision of them, or in the mer- 
ciful plans which he devises for their welfare, 
is full of material for His glory. 

And when the living creatures shall give 
glory and honor and thanks to Him that sit- 
teth on the throne, to Him that liveth for- 
ever and ever, the four and twenty elders 
shall fall down before Him that sitteth on the 
throne and shall worship Him that liveth for- 
ever and ever, and shall cast their crowns be- 
fore the throne, saying, " Worthy art thou, 
our Lord and our God, to receive the glory 
and the honor and the power, for thou didst 
create all things, and because of thy will they 
were, and were created." With the unceasing 
ascriptio7is of those who represent God's 
works and ways are united, in joyful offerings 
of loyalty and love, the praises of the whole 
church of God. The redeemed out of every 
nation, conscious of what has been done for 
them, cannot do too much for God. Exalted 



2$2 ASPECTS OF HE A VEN. 

to the glories of the blessed world, they re- 
joice in all the manifestations of divine power 
and prerogative, they see in all the revolu- 
tions that are changing the aspects of the 
world the fulfillment of holy purposes, and 
so they fall down in unceasing adoration 
before the throne; they offer their devout 
worship to Him who holds all power in his 
hands and who reigns eternally; they cast 
down their crowns of gold before the throne, 
and they say with united voices, " Thou art 
worthy, our Lord and our God, in thy perfect 
character, in thy sublime attributes, in thy 
glorious sway, to receive all that thy church 
can bring of reverence and service to thee : 
for all things exist by thy will, and for thee 
they are." 

Such, when the door opened in heaven, 
were the scenes of that exalted world: the 
throne of God and One who sat upon it 
veiled in the glory that surrounds him, the 



A DOOR OPENED IN HEA VEN. 2jj 

rainbow that over-arches it, lightnings and 
thunderings playing and reverberating around 
it, lamps of fire ever blazing before it, and 
worshippers representing the vast creations 
and the blessed kingdom of grace offering 
their perpetual homage and praise to the 
Eternal Creator and Lord of all! 

Brought into this sublime presence, stand- 
ing by the entrance of this opened door in 
heaven, we may be assured that the kingdom 
is one. 

Those who have gone on before us, we 
who are pressing hard after, the revered of 
other days, the blessed whose warm hand- 
clasp has only just now been loosed from 
ours, those who are near us in the struggle 
and discipline of life, are all members of the 
same commonwealth, heirs of the same heri- 
tage, destined to the same blessed fellowship. 
By and by, and not long will it be, we shall 
be united forever. 



254 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

"They sing the Lamb in hymns above, 

And we in hymns below. 
Thee in thy glorious realm they praise, 

And bow before thy throne ; 
We in the kingdom of thy grace : 

The kingdoms are but one. " 

These glimpses of glories, of which words 
make but a faint and unsatisfactory expres- 
sion, are designed as a test and as an attrac- 
tion. As we look into the opened door, as 
we see the glory and hear the worship, we 
can decide on our relation to it. If we are 
of the heavenly mind we shall look in as 
children look forward to their home-coming, 
as travelers anticipate the sight and welcome 
of native land. Many are the Christians who, 
like St. Paul, have had the desire to depart; 
have longed for the time to come when, freed 
from sin and the temptations of the world, 
they should be confirmed in holiness and 
have their whole being in harmony with the 
service and songs of the heavenly state. 



A DOOR OPENED IN HE A VEN. 2jj 

If we are of the worldly mind, if our pleas- 
ure is in a life of alienation from God, such 
scenes as are introduced to us in the Apoca- 
lypse are repellent; we have no affinity for 
them, they find no answering responses in 
our souls. So the vision becomes a test. It 
is a test of character. 

That opened door may be regarded as a 
door of entrance also. And there is but one 
way in which it can be entered: Christ is 
the Door here, and whoever enters this door 
will enter that door. Through him may be 
granted at last an abundant entrance into the 
everlasting kingdom of heaven. 

This apocalyptic insight and foresight is 
designed as an attraction also. It appeals to 
the renewed soul, to all who are of the heav- 
enly mind. God gives us the sight into our 
home to draw us to it. Pictures and rose- 
colored descriptions entice men to new and 
desirable lands; and from over the sea, from 



2j6 ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 

other lands, they set sail for them. No busi- 
ness, no pleasures, no companions, can detain 
them. There is no satisfaction for them till 
their feet tread the novel soil and their eyes 
look upon the sun-lit skies, and their senses 
are regaled with the songs and fragrance of 
the attractive landscape. So God sets the 
door open in heaven that we may be won to 
its pleasures and pursuits. He gives us the 
glimpse of the glorious throne and the sug- 
gestion of himself, the splendor of a world of 
clear light and unceasing service and happy 
residents, that we may set out for it and press 
onward to it, unhindered by any worldly joys 
or friendships; that our ears may ever be 
filled with the charm and rapture of a far- 
away music, and our souls be stirred and 
spurred by the cheer and welcome of its lov- 
ing and joyous inhabitants. 



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